


Nine Lives

by KivaEmber



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Identity Issues, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Mental Health Issues, New Game Plus, P5R Spoilers, Past Relationship(s), Persona 5 Spoilers, Pining, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Redemption, Slow Burn, Sorry Not Sorry, Time Travel Fix-It, Unreliable Narrator, i turn P5 storyline into a pretzel, kind of, one of them is a cat, there's now two akechis
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-21
Updated: 2020-07-20
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:14:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 20
Words: 37,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24841393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KivaEmber/pseuds/KivaEmber
Summary: After dying for the second time as Maruki's Ideal Reality crumbled, the last thing Akechi expected was to wake up as a cat,in the past, and get saddled with the impossible job of trying to rehabilitate his past self.or;Joker gets Morgana. Akechi gets... his future self in cat form.
Relationships: Akechi Goro/Amamiya Ren, Akechi Goro/Kurusu Akira, Akechi Goro/Persona 5 Protagonist
Comments: 287
Kudos: 1063
Collections: Quality Persona Fics





	1. Prologue

Dying was like this: 

A low swoop in the gut, insides weightless, primal fear sticking in the throat as cloying and metallic as a coughed up lung. It was the greyed bulkhead trapping him in a makeshift coffin, hazy in his tunnelling vision, muffled screams of his name filtering through. It was a doppelganger laughing down at him, deranged and monstrous, yet the most honest Akechi has ever seen himself be. 

Dying was: _this is bullshit-_

* * *

Dying was actually like this: 

It was the cold, sickly calm of realising his current existence was an impossible lie, a clue to the twisted fantasy his corpse had been puppeted into. It was Joker looking at him with an _expression,_ one Akechi didn’t dare put words to. It was a cauldron of regrets and _what ifs_ and _maybes_. It was Akechi understanding that in the end, his life had been nothing but one big cosmic joke, a tragic pawn of a villain now exiting stage left for the hero’s true happy ending. 

Dying was: **_this is_** **_bullshit-_**

* * *

Dying was, in fact, a very complicated thing when it came to Akechi Goro. 

After the doppelganger had murdered the shit out of him, he had simply _woken up_ in Maruki’s fantasy world, his thoughts initially hazy and muddled as to why he felt such a strange twinge in ribs. The same was true this time too: he just _woke up_ , his thoughts smeared and jumbled up like a great hand had reached into his skull and sunk its claws into the grey matter. Everything hurt this time, like he’d been fed through a trash compactor.

 _this is it,_ Akechi had thought a bit stupidly, _i’ve finally hit hell._

But when he opened his eyes, he saw a soggy carton for Big Bang Burger an inch from his nose. After a slow minute where Akechi marvelled that you could still get takeout in the afterlife, the critical thinking part of his brain lurched awake and he realised, _wait, that’s not_ **_right-_ **

Empty takeout carton. Overwhelming stink of stale piss and standing water. A trashcan. Brick wall? An alleyway? Was he _seriously in a fucking_ **_alleyway?!_ **

Akechi contemplated just closing his eyes and ignoring reality until he died again. Third time’s the charm.

But other facts were beginning to trickle in and be processed: he was cold and wet - it was raining - everything stank - he could still smell that Big Bang Burger though and it was making him hungry - too many sensations to be an _afterlife_ \- his body felt _wrong_ \- why was that trashcan looking giant as fuck - this was Joker’s fault somehow. 

“Hrfgh,” Akechi grunted. He forced his aching body to his feet. 

…or, rather, he tried? His arms and legs moved weirdly - and after a prolonged moment where he flopped and rolled drunkenly, Akechi got onto his hands and feet and realised he had paws. Paws. _Paws._ Dark, furry little paws, the black fur cooling into something honey-toned the higher up his legs. Legs. As in four. Four legs. 

Four legs with paws. 

Paws. 

Akechi’s legs ( _fourlegs_ ) trembled, his brain hitting a nice quiet note where he thought of absolutely nothing. He stared at his paws ( ** _paws_** ). His paws remained paws. He experimentally flexed his… fingers… and, claws came out, digging into the rough cement. The pressure against them was unpleasant. 

“What,” he said, his voice coming out weird and strangled, “ _What._ ”

What. 

The _bang_ of a door slamming open jolted him from his horrified stupor. He tumbled over himself, awkward and clumsy, heart thumping frantic in his ears as his legs tried to scramble in four different directions at once. He didn’t see the boot coming until it kicked him hard in the side, driving all the air out of his lungs in a single high-pitched _yowl._

“Outta the way, mangy cat!” a voice boomed, belonging to a giant who towered over him, broad-shouldered and sneering and fucking _huge_ -

And Akechi - bewildered and terrified - bolted, tripping and limping every step of the way.

* * *

He was a cat. 

Akechi’s mind kept numbly repeating this fact after his panicked flight took him to the fringes of a busy street. Central Street in Shibuya, if he weren’t mistaken, the crowd light due to the heavy rain coating the concrete in a hazy film. Akechi ended up taking refuge in a tipped over milk box, cramming himself into the far corner where he escaped the worst of the rain. His entire side throbbed with pain. The pain was good. The pain kept his thoughts sharp. 

He was a cat. 

He didn’t know what kind, only that he was every definition of a _mangy stray_. The rain had waterlogged his fur completely, clumps of mud and other filth clinging to his underside where he’d tumbled face-first (snout… first?) into a disgusting puddle when running away from that giant- man. That man. Human. 

He stank. Probably had fleas. He was hiding in a fucking _box._

He was a _cat._

A **_cat._ **

“This is stupid,” he rasped to himself, glaring viciously out at the thin crowd before him. He felt a visceral, jealous hatred for every single human out there. Seriously. A _cat._ “Of all things to happen…”

But, why wouldn’t this happen? Why wouldn’t ‘be reborn as a _cat_ ’ not feature in the long list of misfortunes and fucking _jokes_ that sucker punched Akechi on a regular basis? Why not. Why the _fuck_ not. 

Akechi stoked that indignant rage, let it sit heavy in his stomach like a searing coal as he _thought._ The first order of business would be to establish what had happened - not necessarily to him, but to the world in general. He wouldn’t be surprised if Joker had stumbled into yet another supernatural conspiracy that threatened Tokyo as they knew it, and Akechi’s _miraculous_ revival into the form of a cat was tied into it somehow. 

So, he should try to discover how much time has passed… 

Plan in place, Akechi crept out of his milk box shelter. During his frantic bolting, he managed to figure out how a quadrupedal walked, though it was stymied by his right hind leg being fucking useless. That kick from earlier had got him hard, and the leg refused to tolerate too much weight and pressure. Out of the starting gate and Akechi was already dealing with a potential broken leg. Fantastic. 

Well, good thing he had _three other legs_ to pick up the slack. 

Keeping to the edges of Central Street to stay out of underfoot, Akechi hobbled towards the newsagents, his right hind leg tucked as high as he could manage to stop himself from instinctively using it. The distance wasn’t far - for a human, maybe - but by the time he reached the shop in question he felt thoroughly exhausted, a burn in his muscles that spoke of strain. 

Akechi ignored the pain through sheer, stubborn willpower, loitering near the doorway to the newsagent. As it was raining most of its newspapers were tucked further into the wide doorway, and Akechi was well aware that stores did not like filthy, disgusting strays sniffing about the place. He probably only had to take one small step into the store until an employee would descend on him, chasing him out of a broom or something. 

He also wasn’t confident in his ability to be agile and stealthy in a body he had very little experience in. So, hm, perhaps a brute force charge would have to do it. Leap in there, grab a newspaper, and bolt with it. It’d look stupid, but it’d have to do. 

* * *

Akechi’s plan went off with minor hitches. 

He lost a good chunk of the newspaper during his clumsy escape from an irate newsagent employee, and parts of it got sodden in the rain, ink running together and clumps of it turning into soggy mush, but Akechi had liberated the hauntingly familiar _front page_ , the familiar headline, the familiar _date._

The date that said _08 April 2016._

It was a date Akechi vaguely remembered - Shido had told him to target a specific train conductor for the following Sunday, something to cause a dramatic accident and bring the Minister of Transportation into disrepute. Akechi remembered having to wriggle his way into the employee records, pilfering their roster and-

2016?

Akechi stared at that date for a long time. The milk box he was using as shelter still let some of the rain through, and that date slowly smeared into a grey mess of nothing as a puddle formed over it. Akechi’s gaze didn’t waver from that spot, _thinking._ If this wasn’t a bizarre hallucination, then… and it wouldn’t actually be the weirdest thing to happen to him, relatively speaking. 

He time travelled, somehow, into the form of a cat. So, did that mean that somewhere out there, Akechi Goro, Detective Prince, was wandering about, stupid and arrogant and oh so sure that he was going to scramble to the top after the dust settled? Who had no idea that everything he worked for was, ultimately, for nothing? An Akechi Goro who was going to fail, and fail _messily,_ shearing off his perfect, inoffensive mask to reveal the snarling, rabid beast underneath to the best possible person?

Akechi thought. 

His death had been bullshit. Akechi had many regrets, but his bloody rise to fame hadn’t really been any of them. He hadn’t cared about his targets, felt an empty hole of nothing when his victims caused more victims, had only kept his eyes on Shido looming high above him, kept his eyes on the ambition of tearing _that man_ down and trapping him into a _living hell._ No, the only regrets he had were tied into a thorny, razor barbed mess, too painful to untangle and parse, but - Joker. Joker was one of them, Joker was- 

( _"_ _Or, are you really so spineless that you’d fold over some bullshit, trivial threat on my life?”_

 _Joker’s gaze was unreadable, but he had an_ expression, _something Akechi didn’t dare put words to. The silence stretched taut, and Joker dropped his gaze, his chin tipping close to his chest, and murmured to the floor-_

_“I won’t fold.”)_

Joker was a regret. 

Akechi wouldn’t benefit from this, that was the thing. The Akechi he was now, here, huddled in a milk box in the form of a cat, would _not_ benefit. It would only be the Akechi of _now,_ perfectly human yet monstrous, who would reap the rewards. Who won’t be trapped in the regret of _Joker_. Did he deserve that? Really?

 _he is me,_ Akechi thought emptily, _but he’s not_ **_me._ **

It was an important distinction to make, in his mind. 

08 April 2016. He had less than a month until the Phantom Thieves truly came into their power, going off the Kamoshida incident, less than a month to try and convince, urgh, _himself_ to use them as a means to escape his doomed fate. Somehow. Can he even be understood by people? Was he like Morgana, where only Persona users could understand him? What if they didn’t…? How was he going to communicate, especially to _Other-Akechi_?

Akechi looked at his paws. Writing might be an issue without thumbs. 

Well, only one way to find out. He still remembered where he used to live, even if it was going to be a trek. He’ll stake out his own apartment and scream until Other-Akechi noticed him. The walk would be long enough for him to think of a convincing pitch, hopefully, to make this whole situation not sound batshit insane to Other-Akechi - or at least, make it so Other-Akechi didn’t decide to eliminate him on sight for being a potential threat. 

Akechi felt a headache form as he wriggled out of his milk box. This was going to be hell. 

It did cross his mind, though, to go the _other way._ Joker… he could pretend to be like Morgana, could do so flawlessly, really, with his knowledge of the Metaverse. A poor amnesiac who was _also_ distorted into the form of a cat, oh dear, maybe they came from the same place! He could doom Other-Akechi to the original path, leaving just _him_ to reap the rewards, albeit as a cat, and… 

…

But that path skirted too close to that _regret,_ made something curdle and clench painfully in his gut, so Akechi discarded it. 

So, Akechi began the long, limping trek to his apartment, stoically ignoring the ice-cold rain and the stabbing pain in his hind leg, gaze fixed to the horizon. From now on, Akechi was carving his own path from the doomed railroads he’d been lured onto - and he was going to drag Other-Akechi with him, kicking and _screaming._

Yes, there’s going to be _a lot_ of screaming. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i woke up in the middle of the night, jotted this idea, and woke up in the morning and actually wrote it. the plot's still kinda vague, and this is my first p5 fic, but hey, it'll be great to see how this disaster in the making unfolds. 
> 
> (for those curious, Akechi's cat form is based on the red Somali cat)


	2. Kamoshida Arc: I

It was well into the night by the time Akechi’s arduous journey was over. 

“I will never complain about public transport again,” he vowed breathlessly, slumping to a halt in the shadow of a dumpster. He was in the back alley that hugged the side of his apartment complex, thankfully cleaner than the one he had woken up in. It was well swept, protected from the rain by the high rising buildings, and - more importantly - it was where the fire escape was located. 

Akechi tiredly eyed the ladder that led up to the first floor apartment. It was not built for feline access in mind. 

However, he was not one to be so easily deterred. His apartment was located on the sixth floor, well within reach, and all Akechi had to do was scale the fire escape, get onto the balcony, and screech until Other-Akechi came to investigate. He would have to be careful in the following confrontation, though. Akechi knew himself, and ‘kindness to animals’ was not a virtue he possessed. 

(For the persona of ‘Detective Prince’ however, he was very much an animal lover! Akechi couldn’t help but recall that fact with a surge of self-deprecating disdain)

...in retrospect, perhaps this plan was a bit reckless. Nothing unusual for him nowadays, as he found a liberating sort of freedom in just charging headfirst into his problems like a deranged bull back in Maruki’s fantasy world - but back then he was human and had… Joker, whereas _now_ he was a cat that barely weighed five kilograms soaking wet. All Other-Akechi had to do was scruff him and he was fucked. 

What other option did he have, though? Crawl back to _Joker_? Spend the rest of his days as a stray, burying his head in the figurative sand and spitefully letting Other-Akechi fumble through the same mistakes? Hah, as if. 

Akechi snarled at himself, limping to the fire escape ladder with grim determination. Enough of this. He had a plan and he was enacting it! Other-Akechi _will_ fall in line, one way or another. 

* * *

One hour later, and several embarrassing spills where he slipped off the wet ladder and restarted his progress in the most demoralising way possible, Akechi _clawed_ his way to his apartment’s balcony. It was a tiny thing, enough for someone to stand out on it, with a thin metal railing that Akechi scrambled over head-first, landing with a loud _thmp_ that had him briefly seeing stars. 

“...ow…” he whined quietly, negotiating with his aching limbs enough to shakily sit up. The rain had died down to a calm drizzle, but he still shivered from the cold, his fur completely soaked through. God, he’d shoot someone for a coat or a heater right now. 

Akechi eyed his apartment’s window, with its drawn curtains and lack of light filtering through. 

Fuck. He wasn’t in. 

Akechi’s sleeping schedule was highly erratic, normally based around his duties for that day. As well as juggling school, detective work and television interviews, he also had to contend with always being on call for Shido’s various assassinations and blackmail farming. Shido gave no prior warning for some of these, usually marked them as urgent and demanded they’d be done before the next day, and so Akechi had mastered the art of catnapping, existing solely off snatches of sleep and lethal amounts of caffeine _._

Because of the opportunistic nature of his sleeping schedule, Akechi normally left the lights on when he was in the apartment, napping or no. They were only off if he weren’t in. Considering how little time he spent at the apartment, this was fine for his electricity bill… but _not_ for Akechi right now! Why wasn’t he in?! 

Wait. This Sunday, with the train accident… ah, right, he would be… scouting out the correct target. Had he already identified an employee by now? He must’ve. So, Other-Akechi would be in Mementos right now, tracking the employee’s Shadow. An errand that normally took either a short hour or an entire night, depending on how elusive his target was. 

Akechi couldn’t remember if this Shadow had been elusive or not. After a while the small fry just blurred together as the same boring chore - he didn’t even recall the employee’s _name_. So, either he could sit here and wait for him to come back or…

Ignoring the shooting pains in his injured hind leg, Akechi coiled his flank muscles and sprung up, latching onto the balcony’s door handle. It was awkward, clumsy, and cat arms were _not_ designed for this, but with a bit of wriggling and hissing and plenty of cursing, the stiff handle dipped and unlatched the door. 

With one hard push of his hind leg against the frame, the balcony door squeaked open a few inches - not enough for a human to slip through, but for a skinny feline? It was enough. Akechi dropped into a clumsy landing, headbutting the door in the process, and frantically wriggled his way through in case the door slid shut. 

He was in. 

Akechi sat back on his haunches with naked relief, surveying his apartment. In the gloom he could clearly see the showroom style of it - furniture artfully arranged but lacking a ‘lived in’ feel, the walls bare of any decorations and photos, the kitchen counter possessing equally unused appliances. It had never bothered him before, this Spartan style in this tiny, box-like apartment, but ever since Leblanc, he couldn’t help but draw comparisons and find this place hopelessly dull. It was devoid of personality or life, pathetically so.

“Leblanc’s ruined me,” Akechi muttered, shaking his paw to get the worst of the mud off. Dark globs of filth dripped onto the perfect cream carpet, and he couldn’t help but feel a curl of dark satisfaction at the mess. So, he scraped his paws clean on that perfect carpet, smearing black streaks, before limping over to the sofa. It was angled to face the television, the remote resting on the cushion. 

Akechi made sure to climb onto it with his _claws._

Petty destruction achieved, Akechi sprawled as comfortably as he could, swatting at the remote until he hit the ‘ON’ button. The television sparked to life, on some news channel, and Akechi lazily watched it with heavy-lidded eyes, reaffirming that, yes, he was in the past, and that it was sometime after midnight. Other-Akechi was having a late night, it seemed. 

_“-Mental Shutdowns continue to be on the rise. Officially, the government does not recognise this as a legitimate sign of a new, unknown disease, despite pressure from the WHO-”_

Akechi’s tail twitched, his gaze drawn to a video the news was playing - it was silent as the news hosts spoke over it, but it was of Shido, no doubt delivering one of his stirring speeches of the lethargy plaguing the Japanese government and blah blah blaaaah blaaaaaah… 

“You,” Akechi murmured, sinking his claws deep into the sofa cushion as an all-too familiar rage choked him. Every time he saw Shido, heard Shido, even _thought_ of Shido, he felt a hatred so visceral it felt like he had a live, writhing snake strangling his insides. He wanted to gouge his eyes out with his bare hands, throttle him, gut him with his fingernails, _fucking tear him apart_ \- yet, at the same time, there was an equally intense desire for him to _acknowledge_ him. To have Shido look at him and think-

…think what?

The thought was there, tipping on the very edge of his mind, but Akechi refused to look at it. He wanted Shido to look at him, and he wanted Shido to know that he was the source of his ruin. He wanted, wanted, wanted…

 _you could have killed him whenever you wanted, if that was your real goal,_ a nasty little voice purred in the murky shallows of his mind, _but it wasn’t really, you just wanted daddy dearest to see you,_ **_be proud of you_** _, since your mother-_

Akechi sprang off the sofa like he’d been burned, the white-hot agony lancing up his hind leg from the rough landing clearing his thoughts entirely. He leant his whole weight on it, panting hard and baring his fangs at the blank, empty wall. Enough. That wasn’t him anymore. 

His thoughts stayed quiet, and Akechi slowly relaxed, sitting heavily as his hind leg twinged and ached. Yes. That wasn’t him anymore. Like Shido would acknowledge a scruffy cat as his son, anyways… 

The scrape of a key in a lock snapped him to full attention. His head swivelled towards the door, ears forwards as he sensed the hesitancy - Other-Akechi hearing the television, moment of doubt ( _“did i leave that on?”_ ), a squeak of a floorboard and the _‘click’_ of a slowly unlatching door, silent enough to be disguised under the sound of the television. Yet, the door didn’t open. 

The moment stretched taut, the tension near choking as Akechi waited. The hallway light was on, cutting a slim line of yellow beneath the door, blocked by the shadow of someone’s unmoving feet. Finally, Other-Akechi came to a decision, and slowly opened his own door without a sound. 

Akechi crept back to hide behind the sofa out of immediate sight, just as his other self stepped inside. 

Backlit by the hallway, it was difficult to see Other-Akechi’s expression, but the resemblance was undeniable. This was _Akechi_ , in the way he looked and moved, coldly and silently scanning the interior of his apartment with a tight grip on his attach é case. This was another him, existing and breathing and _living_ separate from himself, as a _human,_ all ready and willing to blunder head first into his ruin without a second thought. It made him feel mildly nauseous, a bizarre sort of vertigo of seeing this other self _(doppelganger)_ so brazenly strolling about. It rubbed his fur all wrong.

Other-Akechi flipped the light on, closing the door and setting his briefcase down. His expression was still blank, perfectly void of anything as he stepped further into his apartment, migrating slowly towards the still open balcony door, his gaze lowering to where the black streaks marred the carpet. 

Akechi waited until his other self went to carefully close the sliding door shut, flicking the lock, before jumping back onto the sofa. The heavy _thmp_ of his weight clumsily hitting the edge of it, followed by the loud scrabble of claws on fabric, had Other-Akechi spinning around in a flash, eyes narrowed and- 

-comically faltering when he saw Akechi, in all his mangy stray glory, sitting on his sofa staring at him. 

“...a cat?” Other-Akechi muttered, a frown clouding his face even as he started towards the sofa, his hand flexing from no doubt unfriendly thoughts on how to deal with this non-human intruder.

Okay, time to see if communication was possible. 

“I’m not a cat,” Akechi said, his voice raspier than what he was used to. 

Other-Akechi stopped. Stared _._

Communication achieved. 

“In fact,” Akechi continued gleefully, finding a perverse sort of amusement at seeing himself looking so poleaxed, “I’m a persona-user-”

“What,” Other-Akechi said thinly. 

“-and I’m here to prevent your untimely death-”

“ _What._ ” 

“-by Shido’s hands,” Akechi finished, fudging the details because, really, his other self didn’t need the whole truth. 

Other-Akechi’s expression went completely blank. 

Akechi waited him out, his tail flicking from side to side as he clamped down on a sudden surge of jittery nerves. While he could predict his behaviour, even he could admit that he was different to the person Other-Akechi was _now._ He was still chained in that Detective Prince persona, was probably weighing his choices dependant on his surroundings - the walls were thin in this apartment, so his neighbours will no doubt hear if he attempted to murder a cat with his bare hands - and was probably aflame with intrigue. A talking cat in the real world who _also_ claimed to be a _persona-user_? Intriguing. Very intriguing. A suitable carrot. 

The mention of Shido was the stick in this arrangement, though: it had always been a paranoid thought lurking in the back of his mind, that one day Shido would simply discard of him once he no longer found a use for him. But Akechi had always been _useful_ , so that day would never come to pass before he achieved his revenge! To have this paranoid thought come rushing to the forefront would serve to make Other-Akechi tense and worried - which he _wanted._ Self-preservation was _such_ a good motivator to make otherwise stubborn people adaptive.

“...who- _what_ are you?” Other-Akechi finally said, his flat tone the only thing betraying his unease.

 _i’m you from the future,_ Akechi thought humorlessly, _and a cautionary tale._

But he didn’t say that. He straightened up as much as his pathetically small form would allow, tilting his chin up as he looked Other-Akechi in the eye and shed the last of his lingering past. It’d be confusing if he remained Akechi Goro, after all, even if he carefully tucked that identity away in the depths of his heart to never truly be forgotten.

“I’m an ally who wants the same thing as you,” he purred, “Call me… Mordred.” 

And with that, his new path was open to him, ready to be _carved._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i couldn't help it, mordred just seemed like the perfect name to act opposite to morgana /coughs


	3. Kamoshida Arc: II

Negotiations eventually boiled down to ‘prove it’. 

Ake- _Mordred_ couldn’t entirely blame his other self’s doubt. He remembered his own paranoia over Morgana talking and manifesting a persona, and spent the rest of his days eyeing random strays with hidden suspicion. If _one_ cat could gain a persona and, apparently, sapience via the Metaverse, then who’s to say other animals couldn’t…?

This uncertainty, confusion and intrigue was, admittedly, the only thing keeping Mordred in these negotiations. It was why Akechi had demanded they go to Mementos, right now, and verify some of his facts before he believed his warnings of Shido’s attempted assassination of himself. 

( _“You could be planning on killing me in there,” Mordred had commented mildly._

_“Heh, that would be the plan if you were human,” Akechi agreed with equal mildness, the hand rubbing his mouth failing to entirely conceal the smile underneath, “But what’s one more dead stray in an alleyway, hm?”_

_Mordred quickly got the hint._ )

So, here they were once more: the subway system in the dead of night, thankfully with only minimal foot traffic to witness Akechi Goro, Detective Prince, in a narrow-eyed glaring contest with a recently cleaned up stray cat. 

( _“If we’re to be seen together, you_ _can_ not _look like you just crawled out of the gutter.”_

_“But I did,” Mordred said, just to be a little shit, “crawl out of the gutter.”_

_“Just get in the sink.”_ )

“I know I’m a very handsome cat,” Mordred purred, lazily stretching his front legs and arching his lower back, ignoring the bite of pain in his hind leg to perfect his nonchalance, “But I thought we were going into Mementos, not admiring me in the fluorescent light.” 

This snapped Akechi out of whatever grim thoughts he’d been rolling in his mind, lifting his hand that had been clenched around his phone, “‘Handsome’ is a bit of a stretch.” 

“Rude,” Mordred huffed, straightening up as Akechi tapped the navigation app.

Around them the world warped and distorted, that nauseating sensation of being compressed and stretched simultaneously making Mordred close his eyes. For a brief moment, he felt a spike of anxiety - what would his form take in the Metaverse? Obviously, his personal cognition would still be latched onto _Akechi Goro,_ despite his best attempts to supplant that with his new Mordred identity. Would he remain as a cat? Gain a ridiculous form like Morgana (he may have to take Akechi up on being murdered in that case)? Or become _Akechi_ in which case he may have to come up with a good expla-

Mementos snapped into place, and Mordred’s head was yanked down from a sudden weight. He managed not to trip over himself, playing off his near stumble by giving himself a vigorous shake. He was still a cat, that much was clear, on all fours and not at all mascot-like as Morgana became, but his vision was narrowed down by a mask of some sort. 

Not the red-tinged visor of Black Mask, nor the clear view of Crow. It was a bone-white mask that hooked over his snout like a skull with serrated teeth, the lower jaw of it unhinged so it rested against his chest like a crude necklace. It clinked with every movement, like the faint echo of broken chains. Annoying, but not as much as his restricted field of vision, the eyeholes small and narrow enough to make him squint. Fantastic.

Pretending this wasn’t a complete surprise at all, Mordred sat back on his haunches and looked up at Akechi. He was in his Black Mask attire.

“Satisfied?” Mordred drawled. 

Akechi studied him like he was a butterfly pinned to a cork board, tapping one of his claws against the side of his beaked mask. 

“Hardly,” Akechi dropped his hand, tipping his helmet towards the inner depths of Mementos, “If you’re wanting to be my _ally,_ I’ll need to see if you can keep up. That form of yours… it doesn’t seem very strong.” 

Mordred fought down a snarl at the slight, letting out a low, scornful hiss instead, “It’s strong enough.”

“You can’t use any weapons,” Akechi pointed out, “Or firearms. Without your Persona you will… what? Claw them to death?” 

Mordred paused at that, considering. That… was actually a legitimate method of attack. Everything functioned off of cognition, after all. If he believed, and the Shadows believed, his claws to be damaging enough to _damage them,_ then they will. Instead of cat scratches, they’ll get _slashes_. Also, wasn’t it well known that cat bites required a hospital visit, as they could cause all sorts of nasty infections? He might actually manage to have a natural ‘poison attack’ if that cognition proved prevalent enough amongst the Shadows here.

“Obviously,” Mordred scoffed, “But it’s not my battle prowess you should be basing my sole worth on.” 

“Oh?”

“You said it yourself, ‘what’s one more dead stray’?” Mordred parroted Akechi, expertly mimicking his own voice. He bit down on a purr at the disquieted shift of weight Akechi did at the sound of it, “No one notices a cat prowling about, and we can squirm our way into many different places - in both the Metaverse and the real world.” 

“You’re saying you will be my own personal spy, is that it?” Akechi said, sounding dismissive but… the interest was there, Mordred could see it. Right now, Akechi didn’t have a spy network or an intelligence system that was solely his. It was all Shido’s, and it was loyal to only Shido, and if there was something Shido felt that Akechi didn’t need to know then, well, he didn’t. Mordred remembered that used to infuriate him, that Shido felt the need to keep him out of the loop of some of his plans, because he didn’t _trust-_

Well, no matter. All in the past now. 

(Or… future. This was a mindfuck)

“Think about it,” Mordred said, pushing himself up and prowling deeper into Mementos. He made sure not to limp. Showing weakness would trigger Akechi’s urge to go for the jugular.

...was this how Joker felt like when befriending him before his betrayal? Like he was inching his way closer and closer to a very dangerous predator who hadn’t quite decided whether or not it wanted to eat him? It was kind of thrilling, albeit exhausting. 

Very, very, _very,_ exhausting.

* * *

When they encountered a hostile Shadow, Akechi hung back to observe as Mordred went to engage. 

The end result had been… interesting. 

Mordred had known from the start that Robin Hood and Loki were lost to him and something new and alien replaced them. During his long trek to Akechi’s apartment, he had reached deep inside and found himself grasping at a hollow space where they had inhabited. Robin Hood’s naive, childhood dream of justice - gone. Loki’s bitter madness - gone. 

_(“You only had two persona: one for your lies, and one for your hate.”)_

Mordred had plenty of lies and plenty of hate left in him, but they were no longer the foundation of his inner self. Joker had turned him inside out, tore Loki and Robin Hood free until they were patched together as an ugly second skin, no longer hidden from the world. Mordred was hatred incarnate, but it was honed into a fine edge, now. It wasn’t the blunt, indiscriminate cudgel that Akechi currently was, inefficient and so stupid. 

It stood to reason his new persona would reflect that. 

Was this the power of the Wild Card? Changing persona as easily as a snake shedding skin? A Self so volatile and malleable that it changed on a dime, just from a simple thing like a new perspective? 

When Mordred reached into himself, his mental fingers had blistered, the surge of power making him dizzy as a name lunged to the forefront of his mind. The upper jaw of his skull mask crumbled to ash as blue flames wreathed, and from the very depths of his soul howled Thanatos. His arrival was heralded by the rattling of chains and the guttural pants and snarls of a beast barely tamed, and the poor, poor, poor Shadow - a meaningless Nue - barely had a moment to realise its fate before the thing was torn _apart._

Mordred vaguely remembered laughing - a wild, ecstatic noise, every nerve singing like Loki had injected his psychosis-magic directly into his brain stem. Was this what it felt like, to _really_ unleash your true self? It was addictive, fantastic, _amazing_! He wanted to keep feeling it, wanted to keep barrelling into the depths of Mementos, slaughtering and rending everything in his wake until he got bored of it, if he ever did. 

He managed to hold back, though, Thanatos fading into nothingness as his mask regenerated. He peeked over his shoulder to Akechi lurking in the darkness, his expression hidden and the crimson slits of his visor near glowing in the gloom. 

“Well…” Akechi murmured, softly enough that even Mordred strained to hear, “I think there might be a use for you after all.” 

“So, you’ll agree to a deal?” Mordred asked, his blood still pounding hot in his ears. He could hear the lingering bloodlust in his voice as he pushed greedily; “A partnership?”

Akechi’s head tipped down and to the side. Mordred could see a glimpse of a ruthless smile under the shadow of his mask. 

“Sure,” Akechi purred, “Let’s make a deal.” 

And that was that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yes, catkechi's mask is thanatos's mask, and his persona is thanatos i have nO REGRETS
> 
> also im very glad that people are enjoying this! thank you so much to those who kudos/commented/bookmarked!
> 
> ( **edit:** i really don't get why gdocs puts spaces between italics when i copy paste so if you see random spaces between italicised words and full stops/commas, that's why im sorry ;; i try to catch them in my pre-post edit but i miss one or two it seems 
> 
> **edit 2:** ngl i was highly tempted to make catkechi's new persona erebus but that dude's probably still skulking about on the moon or wherever elizabeth kicked its shit in)


	4. Kamoshida Arc: III

**10 April 2016.**

Aoyama-Itchome was quiet when Mordred arrived on the scene. With no students loitering this early in the morning, on a Sunday at that, there was thankfully barely any foot traffic to impede his lazy progress towards Shujin Academy. Akechi had _kindly_ chauffeured him here before departing for his early morning train sabotage, though his other self had emphatically stated that he couldn’t always be around to taxi Mordred from place to place. 

That was fine. He didn’t want to tie his travelling ability to Akechi’s whims. It was laughable, how little they trusted each other despite striking a deal, but there was a refreshing sort of honesty about it all. They didn’t conceal their suspicion from one another, and while Akechi hid behind his plastic smiles and mild words, he didn’t allow it to soften his acerbic personality - much to Mordred’s relief. 

If he had to deal with his other self’s Detective Prince persona in close-quarters for months on end, he’d go crazy. 

...craz _ier._

Anyway. 

Mordred came to a slow stop at the front steps leading up into the academy, staring up at the building with a discerning eye. Kamoshida’s Palace was here, allegedly. While frolicking through the Metaverse of Tokyo in his own past, he did spot random Palaces here and there in the skyline - majority of which he rarely visited. They all interlocked and existed within the same spaces like a messed up Escher painting, creating dangerous distortions where their existences collided. It stood to reason then that Mordred had most likely seen Kamoshida’s Palace in those moments, but obviously hadn’t put a name to the place. 

He flicked his tail and carefully scaled the steps until he was high enough to jump onto the wall. His hind leg was a bit better than yesterday - persona-users were considerably hardier than the average mortal - but he didn’t want to overstrain it and go lame. That’d reduce his usefulness by a considerable degree in Akechi’s eyes, and much like handling Shido, Mordred needed to remain useful to Akechi until he… helped him. 

Somehow. 

The plan was still a work in progress. 

Today was just a scouting mission, to see how far the distortion progressed. He didn’t possess a Meta-Nav, but that was fine as today he also wanted to _experiment._ Morgana had been traversing the Metaverse before encountering Joker, and he never needed that navigation app, so, perhaps, if Mordred could figure out _how_ he did that… 

Granted, this was assuming that Morgana was something similar to him, somehow. Was it a unique ability only to him? Much like how only Akechi could induce Psychosis in his victims? Or was it something much more complex at work, another layer to the psience they relied on to make sense of this other world?

However it worked, Mordred was determined to crack the secret. Hence coming to Shujin Academy on a Sunday morning - best to do it without having to deal with people roaming about and accidentally stepping on him. 

So, he got comfortable on his wall, closing his eyes and trying to… sense? There was always a distinct _feel_ when you encountered distortions, even in the real world - it was why he tended to avoid the subway as much as he could unless work dictated a timely arrival. With Mementos tangled up so tightly amongst the subway’s guts, it gave him nausea inducing headaches if he spent too much time there outside of the Metaverse. 

But perhaps that was because the distortions were too severe in that location. Here, Mordred barely felt _anything._ Maybe a bit of a staticy feeling in his whiskers, an itch of _hmm weird_ , but nothing like Mementos. It meant the Palace’s owner was a weak one, his distorted desires not yet rotten enough to bloat into a monstrous hole. It was petty, small, narrow-minded… 

“A worm’s eye view of what greatness is,” Mordred decided, opening his eyes and- _freezing._

For walking up the narrow path towards Shujin Academy was none other than Sakura Sojiro and _Joker._

Except- he wasn’t Joker right now, was he? Mordred never knew when exactly Joker became Joker, but he knew it was soon after joining Shujin. Why was he here on a Sunday? To- ah, yes, to introduce himself, most likely, Sakura-san was here, and so- 

The unlikely pair reached the steps. Mordred remained frozen in place, his eyes unblinking as he stared at Joker stared back. 

“Stay here,” Sakura-san said gruffly, “I’ll see if they’re ready to see us.” 

Joker nodded silently, and Sakura-san vanished inside the school. 

“Joker,” Akechi- _Mordred_ said without thinking. 

Joker tilted his head curiously, and for one terrifying moment Mordred thought _fuck he understood me-_

“Hey,” Joker said softly, one hand tucked into his pocket, the other gripping his bag strap. His knuckles were white and his shoulders were tense, the morning light glinting off his stupid, oversized glasses. He looked stressed. It was a bizarre thing to see so openly. 

“Do you… understand me?” Mordred asked tentatively, a complicated feeling lodging hard in his throat. He hoped Joker didn’t understand him right now, because that just blew whatever foundation of a plan he scraped together out of the water, but also he _wanted him to understand_ because… because, _because_. 

“What’s up, kitty?”

...he didn’t understand. 

“Nothing,” Mordred said flatly, hating the crushing disappointment that swallowed up his insides, “Nothing at all.”

“I don’t have any food on me, if that’s what you’re after,” Joker said sheepishly, toeing the floor and bouncing his knee nervously, “Sorry.”

“Idiot,” Mordred muttered.

“Meow to you too,” Joker laughed quietly at his own dumb joke. Mordred had an abrupt and overwhelming urge to bite him. 

“Your hair still looks stupid,” Mordred added spitefully, not moving when Joker carefully reached a hand out on what seemed to be a whim, “Your glasses too. You look like an unsocialised hermit.” 

“Yeah, yeah,” Joker sighed, scratching Mordred behind the ears. 

It felt nice. 

It also felt horrible. 

Mordred endured it. 

“This is your fault somehow,” he continued, a tight pressure squashing hard against the inside of his ribs, “Me being here. You hated the thought of me disappearing. I noticed- you wanted to take Maruki’s deal, just because of me. _Me_ , Akira. Why the _hell_ did you think I was worth that?” 

Akira didn’t say anything. He seemed content to let this random cat yowl insistently at him, distractedly running his hand down along the length of Ake- Mord- Akechi’s spine. He was just a cat to him. A noisy cat.

“I wasn’t worth that,” Akechi finished quietly. He dipped his head and Akira rubbed his thumb between his ears. 

“Come on,” Sakura-san was back, poking his head through the door, “Stop teasing that cat. They’re ready for you.”

Akechi kept his eyes closed, listening to the scrape of shoes against cement, the hand that gave him one last rub over his head and a playful tap to his nose. It took herculean effort to look up, to see Akira wriggle his fingers in goodbye and walk away, up the remaining steps and disappear into Shujin.

Akira hadn’t looked back once.

* * *

Mordred moved locations after that. 

He circled the perimeter of the school, finding another low wall far away from any entrances to curl up on and contemplate how to enter the Metaverse without the navigation app. Maybe he needed the keywords in mind, a focus on that static feeling of _hmm weird_ \- maybe think very very hard ‘I need to enter this Palace?’ It _was_ all about cognition and belief, at the end of the day. 

Kamoshida, Shujin Academy… two out of three keywords. What was his distortion?

Honestly, he couldn’t quite remember what little he gleaned about Kamoshida’s Palace back then. Kamoshida was a typical corrupt adult: he abused those he considered beneath him, exploited female students who couldn’t say ‘no’, and ruled over those he should have been protecting like a selfish king in his- ah, there we go. 

_kamoshida, shujin academy and castle,_ he thought smugly and waited. 

…

…

Nothing. 

“Hmm,” Mordred rose to his feet, pacing the length of the wall he was on, “Kamoshida, Shujin Academy, Castle. Kamoshida, Shuji- no, _School_ , Castle. Kamoshida, School, Castle.” 

Nothing. Mordred started to feel a bit embarrassed. 

“Ugh!” He moodily flopped down on the wall in a full blown sulk, his legs dangling over the edge on either side, “Why can Morgana do it and not me?!” 

Unless, maybe he was mistaken. Maybe he was only _assuming_ Morgana had the ability before meeting Joker - but then, how did he get into the Metaverse initially? Morgana had been insistent he was human, but hadn’t known what the app was before Joker (allegedly), so how...

Mordred sighed, closing his eyes wearily. Maybe he should take a nap. He hadn’t slept at all before coming here, just dozing in fits and starts, and the sun was warm and this position was surprisingly comfortable. Exhaustion pulled on him, and before he could feebly put up a mental protest, he was already drifting off asleep. 

And as he did so, a translucent butterfly fluttered past his ear, as his dreams delved downwards towards a sea of blue.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> because someone asked the question about the pairing, yes there is past akechi/joker on mordred's side, but there will also be akechi/joker while mordred aggressively pines on the sidelines and makes things weird. it's gonna be akechi/joker/akechi love triangle y'all 
> 
> as for his codename, honestly, i haven't given it much thought yet! also gotta think of the joke code name, for joker's off the wall comment selection... 
> 
> once again, thank you all for reading and kudos and comments and aaaa i'm glad people are enjoying this ;w;


	5. Kamoshida Arc: IV

Mordred woke up the sound of gentle rain, accompanied by a high note singing softly on the far edge of his hearing. Groggily, he raised his head, groaning at the throbbing ache that thrummed through every inch of him. He had that trash compactor feeling again, like something had tried to grind even his bones into fine dust. It made his vision swim as he tried to focus- an overwhelming glow of blue blinding him-

“Welcome, to the Velvet Room.”

Mordred damn near leapt out of his _skin._

“ _Who-!?”_ he squawked, flailing to his feet- and promptly face-planting when his paws slipped on polished wood and sent him sprawling. 

“Ah,” that same voice, high-pitched and particular, “My apologies. I did not mean to startle.” 

Humiliation swept through Mordred as invigorating as adrenaline, and he furiously fought through the strange lethargy weighing him down to get back on his feet - carefully. He was standing on a wooden table of some sort, his vision focusing as he looked around him - blue walls, polished counter with familiar stools, familiar decorations, familiar… table...

There was a distinct scratch in the polished wood next to his left paw. Shaped like one of those ‘S’ word art students were obsessed with drawing on their notes - he had traced it with his finger many times in Leblanc when having coffee with... 

But- 

Leblanc’s walls were never blue, and the man standing (sitting?) behind the counter was _not_ Sakura-san. A balding man with a grotesquely long nose and bulging eyes grinned a rictus grin, staring at him with an intensity that made him feel flayed open. Aside from those _disturbing anomalies_ , everything else was _Leblanc_ , identical down to the slight imperfections.

Rain hit the glass door. The sign from the inside said **OPEN**. 

“...who are you?” Mordred demanded, a bit too rattled to put any real force into it, “Where am I?”

“My name is Igor,” the long-nosed man said cordially, seemingly oblivious to Mordred’s rising hostility, “This place exists between dream and reality, mind and matter. It is a room that only those who are bound by a ‘contract’ may enter.”

Contract?

“I don’t recall signing a contract,” Mordred said carefully, squelching the agitation rising in his chest. Some primal instinct told him that this may be a moment where indulging in his newfound recklessness won’t serve him well.

“Yes…” Though the smile didn’t waver, ‘Igor’ somehow expressed discontent, “Your circumstances are worrisome. An invitation extended yet never received is a first for the Velvet Room. Though it was the usurper who orchestrated your sabotaged offer, an invitation remains an invitation.”

Mordred hoped his feline features accurately conveyed his blank confusion. 

“Ah, that is right. Your mortal soul lingered in the peripheral when our previous guest dealt with that,” Igor waved a hand dismissively, “This Velvet Room is tied to you, a remnant of a frayed thread to a path long concluded, and thus exists outside of the usurper’s machinations. What effect will this have on your fate, I wonder…?”

“ _What_ ,” Mordred bit back the hiss, feeling his ears flatten against his skull, “What are you talking about?”

Igor’s grin didn’t falter, “Do you not remember your deal?”

 _WHAT FUCKING DEAL,_ he internally screamed, gritting out a barely polite; “No.” 

“Hmm, unsurprising,” Igor mused, “You are aware of your persona ability, are you not? The one called the ‘Wild Card’?”

Mordred took a deep exhale, but allowed the non-sequitur, as much as it galvanised him, “It allows for multiple personas.”

“Why is that?”

“I…” Mordred wasn’t sure what the answer was. He assumed it was just a special ability, like Loki’s psychosis, “I don’t know.” 

“It is the power to control one’s own heart,” Igor explained almost gently, “And the heart is strengthened by forming deep, intimate bonds with others. Many guests tend to interpret this as friendship or love, but intimacy takes many forms, as well as understanding.”

“Even if…” Mordred faltered, thinking inexplicably of Shido, of Joker, “Even if that understanding is one of hatred and resentment?”

“Even then,” Igor said, “In your previous life, you shunned nearly every connection you had, stunting your growth as the Wild Card. It is… a deep failure on our part, allowing the usurper’s machinations to sabotage a guest so thoroughly.”

Multiple times now, Igor referenced this ‘usurper’, and the idea that some mysterious entity had been sabotaging Akechi without his knowledge left him deeply… unnerved. Sabotaged how? What did he… 

( _“But... that’s when it happened! Hahaha! Someone, be it god or_ **_demon_ ** _, gave me a_ **_chance_ ** _!”)_

It was like being gutted, a nauseous, sickening lurch making his insides drop into a bottomless hole. Nothing in life was free, he realised faintly, and at the time he had been too delirious with glee at his _gift_ to question the intentions behind it. He hadn’t even cared, only thought ‘ _i can do it i can ruin shido i can i can i can’_ and never… thought beyond that. Usurper. Sabotage-

( _“Can you tell me what happened after… parting ways with me in Shido’s Palace?”_

_“Yeah,” Joker rubbed the back of his neck, his expression weary, “I’ll give you the short version since it’s… kind of hard to explain. After Shido, Memen-”_

_The memory snapped)_

“ _Argh-_ ” Mordred recoiled at the ugly spike of pain that slammed through his skull, blinking stars out of his vision as he barely stopped himself from pitching forwards onto his face. Urgh what, was that…? 

“Is something wrong?” Igor asked.

Yeah, the fucking _pickaxe_ currently trying to mine his fucking _brain._

“ _Nothing_ ,” Mordred hissed, shaking off the lingering dizziness and getting back on track, “Who is this bastard _sabotaging_ me? And why? _Why?_ Is he the one who gave me this power? Was I- _am_ I just another puppet for some shitty plan?!”

Igor was annoyingly unruffled by the furious outburst, “That is something you must discover on your own. The truth will be revealed to you as you continue to develop your power as the Wild Card.”

“Don’t push that cliche crap,” Mordred sneered, feeling sick at the unsubtle nudge to ‘ _~make friends~_ ’, “Why should I? I don’t need _bonds_ anymore _._ I’m a fucking _cat!_ If anything you should be giving this to the _other Akechi-_ ”

“It can only be you,” Igor said. 

The rain came down harder. It was a dull roar that drowned out that softly singing note. 

“...why,” Mordred whispered, that lethargy finally overcoming his anger. He slumped down, down, down, until he was lying on that table, face buried into the crook of his front leg, “ _Why._ ”

“The path you have chosen for yourself is one of hardship, misery and pain,” Igor said solemnly, “Yet, it is the path that will offer you true freedom and the beginning of redemption. With no promise of reward or paradise at the end, will you still continue knowing that? Only your freedom is certain, but it may be one in which you have nothing to claim as your own.” 

“...” 

“Perhaps it is best to continue this conversation another time,” Igor said. The rain was so loud Mordred barely heard him, “Let me add, though, that this room is truly an interesting one. It reflects the guest’s heart, and it seems this place means a great deal to you.”

 _Of course it does. It was the only place where…_

Mordred didn’t finish the thought. 

“Allow me to offer you a parting gift, to aid you in your journey,” Igor said, but his form was already starting to fade, as Leblanc's light dimmed, “May this serve you well, R-”

The rain drowned out the rest of Igor’s words.

* * *

Mordred woke up to something shoving him roughly. 

He barely managed to regain his balance, scrambling to his paws and skittering along the wall a few feet. His thoughts were still muddled - _where’s leblanc,_ he thought dumbly - stumbling to a halt and looking over his shoulder to see an unpleasantly familiar face scowling up at him. He saw it many times on television.

Kamoshida. 

“Hey, hey, shoo, cat,” the disgraced Olympian tsk’d, following him along the wall and swatting at him with his hand, “Get out of here, no animals allowed.” 

Mordred hissed, but not wanting to deal with such a repulsive individual, allowed himself to be successfully shooed. He leapt off the wall, landing heavily on the solid street below, and swiftly relocated elsewhere along Shujin’s perimeter. He found a small hole in a mesh fence near what seemed to be a long abandoned running track. He squirmed in. 

As he aimlessly meandered along Shujin’s empty property, his thoughts pitched weirdly, snatches of conversation and words filtering through his memory. What had he been dreaming about? It had felt important, but a dull roar of rain kept muffling every other word, and when he strained too hard his head throbbed with the promise of a crippling migraine. Reluctantly, he let it go. It was only a dream, anyway. 

“I should try getting into the Palace again,” he said to himself, giving himself a vigorous shake to refocus before breaking into a light trot around the running track. It amused him in some weird way, “What was it again…? Right, Kamoshida, School, Castle.” 

He hadn’t expected anything to happen, just wanted to reaffirm the keywords, so consider him _unpleasantly_ surprised when the world warped nauseatingly, compressed and stretched at once, sending Mordred toppling head first into an ornamental pond that manifested _right under him_.

“ _Fuck_ -!”

**_SPLASH!_ **

Navigation successful.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i am possessed by a writing demon, this idea just won't leave me alone haha 
> 
> as a warning though, i'm not normally this super fast! so please enjoy the swift updates ;w;


	6. Kamoshida Arc: V

**10 April 2016**

So, already, he was off to a great start.

As Mordred clawed his way out of the pond like a malevolent spirit of the drowned (and almost toppling back in when the lower jaw of his mask caught the edge of it), he was confronted with the ugliest hedges known to human history. Tactically arranged to overwhelm any intruder’s unfortunate eyes, Kamoshida hedges leered over him, each one in some various pose meant to convey his virility. There was even a  _ naked _ one with  _ heavily _ exaggerated attributes, something that Mordred found so utterly repulsive he made a noise like he was hacking up a hairball. 

Not even  _ Shido _ had been so…  _ that. _ Was there even a word for this? Mordred felt hypnotised by sheer disgust, his head slowly swivelling from Kamoshida hedge to Kamoshida hedge before he managed to shake himself out of it. 

Luckily, his clumsy entry into the Palace hadn’t been detected by nearby Shadows. That staticy feeling from before had evolved into a full blown  _ itch, _ his whiskers twitching as he slinked between the ugly hedges, dripping stagnant pond water in his wake. Above him a castle loomed - the walls were high, surrounding a main tower (presumably where Kamoshida’s Shadow would reside with its Treasure), but it was surprisingly small compared to other Palaces Mordred had infiltrated.

Still, he kept vigilant. Palaces enjoyed warping the laws of physics, and castles tended to be rife with insane traps - a side-effect of boobytrapped castles being a popular medium in both mainstream video games and films, if Mordred recalled correctly. 

It wasn’t until he reached the garden’s gates that he encountered his first Shadow. They were bound in the form of a medieval knight, clanking loudly in their loose armour as they did a mindless patrol route back and forth in front of a large set of double doors. The entrance into the castle. 

_ strange,  _ Mordred mused, settling down in the shade of a hedge to secretly watch this lone Shadow. Kamoshida was, indeed, a weakling in both mind and Shadow, but it was strange for there to be so few guards. Perhaps because it was a Sunday, his mind reflected an expectancy for lack of ‘intruders’? Or maybe Kamoshida had been left unchallenged for so long his Palace’s security became complacent as a result, a low-hanging fruit that was left alone simply because it wasn’t worth the effort.

It was a perfect set-up for a complete novice to blunder through the ins and outs of persona use. Weak Shadows, few guards, and a snivelling creep as the main threat. If Akechi had come here as the Black Mask… 

Mordred rose to his feet, shaking himself vigorously until his damp fur fluffed out. Right, let’s get this over with. 

The Shadow barely had time to pivot on its heel before Thanatos’s blade sliced it in two. The wretched thing burst in a shower of black sludge that vanished as quickly as it appeared, leaving the way clear. Annoyingly, Thanatos had to open the doors for him (or, well, it barrelled into the doors and blasted them off their hinges, same thing) and after a quick peek inside to see if he drew any attention, Mordred quickly infiltrated the castle without a single alarm going off. 

Easy. Too easy. 

The hallway went in two directions, lined with portraits of Kamoshida - and statues of women in various states of undress. Mordred blanked them out, not really caring, picking a direction where the itchy feeling in his whiskers was strongest, his ears perked in alert to ensure a Shadow didn’t sneak up on him. 

He was trying to get a rough blueprint of the castle - if he’s to observe the Phantom Thieves’ humble beginnings in this place, it’d help if he knew the layout beforehand to better track them, and if there were any annoying  _ puzzle traps _ he needed to figure out along the way. He didn’t want to deal with that shit while stalking Joker of all people.

It was an hour or so later, where Mordred felt that he’d mapped out enough for the day and was slowly circling back to the garden, that he heard a muffled commotion filtering down the hallway. He took cover behind a statue just as several Shadows charged past, yelling something about an intruder - all heading towards the entrance hall. 

That can’t be Joker already, could it?

Mordred hesitated for a moment - it couldn’t be Joker, but, at the same time, he  _ did _ see him at school this morning. Anyway, should it even matter? Joker obviously came out of his encounter perfectly intact and with a new persona, so it shouldn’t even be Mordred’s problem right now. 

He flicked his tail. 

“You’re pathetic,” he muttered to himself as he doubled back towards the entrance hall. 

When he got there, well… 

“Argh, let me gooo!” A  _ very familiar voice _ shrieked, just as Mordred reached the entrance hall and darted underneath a low-sitting sofa rimmed with gold before he could be spotted. 

“Silence, intruder! You dare sully King Kamoshida’s glorious castle with your incessant wailing?!”

“Glorious?! It’s gaudy and  _ ugly _ \-  _ ow _ !”

Mordred couldn’t believe his luck. He stared from beneath his safe spot under the sofa, where six Shadow guards were congregated around a seventh clad in golden armour. The golden Shadow shook its captive clenched in its hand, effortlessly holding up the squirming and indignant  _ Morgana. _

“Perhaps an overnight stay in the dungeons will temper some respect in you,” the golden Shadow sneered, “King Kamoshida will deal with you tomorrow!” 

“W-What- hey! No! You can’t lock me up! Hey! Heeeeey!”

Mordred watched as the Shadows carted Morgana away, flexing his claws into the polished marble beneath him anxiously. 

Was this meant to happen?

Morgana was  _ integral _ to the Phantom Thieves’ formation. He guided them on how to infiltrate Palaces, led them into Mementos, and told them how to change hearts without initiating a Mental Shutdown. Without Morgana, there were no Phantom Thieves. Yet… Mordred hadn’t done  _ anything _ to change the timeline - well, except meeting with his past-self, but there was no way that changed anything  _ significant. _

_ joker met morgana here, _ he thought to himself,  _ so, maybe this was how they met? in kamoshida’s dungeons? _

Mordred flicked his tail a few times before coming to a decision. It wouldn’t hurt to  _ check _ on Morgana, right? Just make sure he didn’t mouth off enough for one of the Shadows to execute him on the spot for ‘impertinence’. It would be…  _ inconvenient _ otherwise, since Mordred might have to take matters into his own hands to nudge the Phantom Thieves into formation. 

_ i can only lead so many double lives, _ he thought grimly, and crawled out from under the gaudy sofa to track Morgana down. 

* * *

Morgana was not having a very lucky day. 

He’d lost his lockpick, he got  _ caught _ in the ugliest Palace ever,  _ and _ the bars of the cell they threw him in were too narrow for his head to fit through! He even tried using Zorro to break down the cell doors, but they resisted every attempt and it only drew the ire of any nearby Shadow guards. Morgana was, to put it lightly,  _ screwed. _

“Argh, this is unfair!” he yowled, rattling the cell door in frustration. If only he had his lockpick! He would’ve been out of here in under a  _ minute _ ! 

The cell door didn’t budge, and Morgana slumped in exhaustion. His body ached - the Shadows had been pretty rough with him - but he was alive and in one piece. He just had to find a way out of here before this ‘King Kamoshida’ came to see him tomorrow. Yeah, yeah,  _ tomorrow. _ That was plenty enough time for a thief of his calibre to think of a breakout plan. Easy. 

The clink of chains made him still. 

It was a distinct noise - a flash of memory of Mementos - and Morgana instinctively bristled, clutching at the bars of his cage as the ominous noise drew closer and closer and closer, until it sounded like it was directly  _ above him _ . Was it the Reaper!? No way, he was stuck in Mementos! He couldn’t come into Palaces, r-right?

“W-Who’s there?!” he yelled, “I ain’t scared! If you think shaking some chains will rattle me, I’ll-”

A shape landed abruptly in front of his cell, scaring the fur right off Morgana’s body. 

“ _ UWAH!” _ he sprung back like he’d been shot out of a cannon, hitting the cell bench and briefly seeing stars as he spun around from the force of the collision. Two dizzy spins and he quickly regained his composure, pointing dramatic at the intru...der…?

...

A cat sat in front of him. 

It looked like a normal one too, with dark honey-toned, plush fur, except for the creepy skull-like mask covering its head. From the eye sockets of the mask, glowing yellow eyes stared at him, disturbingly alike to a Shadow’s. But, it didn’t  _ feel _ or  _ smell _ like a Shadow, and it was just… sitting there. Staring at him. Creepily. 

“Uh- hello?” Morgana tried, cautiously moving closer. Other cats tended not to like him, probably sensing he was actually a human deep down (yeah!), but this one didn’t seem like a normal cat. If it had a mask, then, what, it had a persona? Weird. 

The mystery cat cocked its head, yellow eyes unblinking.

“Can you understand me?” Morgana asked, clutching at his cell bars, “If you can, I- er, there should be a key nearby! Just over there! If you let me out, I’ll share some treasure with you! Or, I will once I steal it!”

Mystery Cat blinked very slowly at that and rose to its paws. 

Hope leapt in Morgana’s chest, “Is that a yes?”

No response. Mystery Cat just walked away, sounds of gently swaying chains following in its wake…  _ away _ from where the key was. 

“What- hey, no! You’re going the wrong way! Hey! Hey, get back here you stupid cat! Heeeeey!” 

No dice. Mystery Cat vanished into the gloom, and the noise of clinking chains drifted off soon after. 

“Hmph! What a jerk!” Morgana fumed, “It would’ve taken no effort to help me!” 

Then again, that cat had felt  _ weird. _ Not a good weird, but not a bad one. Just  _ weird. _ His fur felt itchy, and Morgana irritably smoothed it down, putting Mystery Cat out of mind. No point relying on unhelpful jerks! Morgana just had to figure his own way out of here! 

Maybe he could… dig his way out… 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> just so you know this p much sets the mood for the rest of mordred and morgana's relationship


	7. Kamoshida Arc: VI

**10 April 2016**

It was well into the late evening when Akechi returned to his empty apartment, exhausted and dissatisfied. 

Forays into the Cognitive World, no matter how short or for how simple a task, always left him fatigued down to the bone. All he did today was induce a short psychotic episode in his target - at the optimal time of morning rush hour - yet somehow his joints ached and a dull pressure headache pressed against the back of his eyes like he spent the entire day doing gymnastics through a particularly trying Palace. 

In fact, he might’ve preferred that. At least it would’ve been a satisfying use of his _time._ His little task had him making awkward excuses for his lateness into work, which in turn had him pull a longer shift, which in turn kicked the can called ‘school work’ further down the road. Not that he was concerned about lagging behind the rest of his peers but it was _incredibly_ frustrating to comb over his neglected school work last minute before exams, _just in case_ something obscure was taught and he missed it. 

He was at school on a scholarship, and he was determined to keep it like that, despite Shido’s _generous_ offers to pay his way. 

(He cannot let himself be ensnared further by _that man-_ )

Akechi sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose and setting his case down on the sofa. It was late, he was hungry, and probably in the midst of a caffeine crash. He shouldn’t work himself into a sulk…

_Thmp._

Akechi lowered his hand, slowly turning to his balcony door. Through the glass he could see his newest coworker awkwardly clinging onto the handle, most likely having come to the realisation that Akechi had locked it. 

Akechi smiled.

He was _incredibly_ tempted to just walk away and leave Mordred to stew - but the cat was staring right at him with those unnervingly bright yellow eyes, all but _daring_ him to. The question was: was Akechi willing to endure the dulcet tones of an evil cat screeching outside his balcony so close to midnight?

…

...no. No, he wasn’t. 

Akechi walked over and unlocked the balcony door, pushing it open. Mordred heavily dropped down and limped inside, smelling strongly of stagnant water and wet dog. 

“Did something happen?” Akechi asked mildly, shutting the door even as his gaze remained fixed on the cat’s stiff hind leg, “You’re limping.” 

“I’m fine,” Mordred said dismissively, making a beeline for the sofa. Akechi frowned when the cat used his claws to clamber up it. 

“Stop destroying my upholstery,” Akechi scolded, his frown turning into a scowl when he realised Mordred had left tiny black foot prints from some unknown substance, “And tracking dirt over my carpet.” 

Mordred, now sprawled on the sofa like he owned it, just gave him a long, heavy-lidded stare. It was intensely irritating.

“If I am to house you,” Akechi began, modulating his tone normally reserved for particularly obstinate adults he was forced to be civil to, “It would be nice if you could be a _little_ respectful towards my furniture. In fact, if you’re well-behaved, I might consider rewarding you for it.” 

Mordred tilted his head at that, one ear cocked upwards (curiosity?). 

“You’re _bribing_ me to keep the place clean?” the cat asked, his raspy voice darkly amused, “What’s the reward? The wet cat food from yesterday?”

“Did you like that brand?” Akechi asked sincerely. Yesterday had been a bit of a whirlwind, where Akechi, between processing the fact that his new coworker was a talking, persona-using cat, also realised that his apartment didn’t have anything cat-friendly in it. While they obviously didn’t trust each other as far as Mordred could throw him, Akechi wasn’t stupid enough to actively breed resentment in an ally that was solely _his._ He could make concessions. He could play nice. 

Mordred, he found, did not like playing nice. 

“I’m fine with the tuna sandwiches you buy for yourself at the convenience store,” Mordred said, which wasn’t a _no,_ “It’s cheaper too.”

Akechi scoffed at that, “My funds aren’t so strapped that I can’t buy cat food.”

 _also i read tuna is bad for cats,_ he didn’t say, not wanting to reveal that he crammed as much as he could about cat-care into his brain during his lunch break. There was a surprisingly long list of foods cats weren’t allowed to eat, and tuna was right near the top. 

“In any case,” Akechi hurried the topic along, because Mordred’s muzzle wrinkled in a way that signified he was displeased, “How was your ‘errand’ today?”

“Hrm,” Mordred mulled over his words for a moment - deciding what to say, what not to say; he was refreshingly transparent in his lack of trust. Akechi found it a little intriguing, “Just as fun as your errand, I’d imagine.”

“My errand?” Akechi felt briefly unsettled. He never mentioned his errand to Mordred, only that he was going to work, so how did he…? Ah, “You heard the news then?”

“It was all people ever spoke of as I returned here,” Mordred said blandly, completely ambivalent of Akechi’s early-morning felony, “You made an incredible impact. Shido must’ve been pleased.”

“...mm,” Akechi loosened his tie, suddenly feeling discomforted by its light pressure around his throat, “It was… routine.” 

“Routine,” Mordred parroted.

“Routine,” Akechi confirmed. 

Mordred’s ear twitched, and his tail flicked, and Akechi catalogued every single movement, shuffling them in the mental folder that was slowly taking shape as Mordred’s profile. The quicker he grasped the cat’s tells, the easier Akechi could find his leverage points. They may be _allies,_ but Akechi liked to have the power dynamic tilted more in his favour, thank you very much. 

“If you excuse me,” Akechi said, when a very heavy, uncomfortable silence stretched between them for too long, “I have work to get to.”

Mordred just gave him another long, unreadable look, before he lowered his head and closed his eyes. It was clear he had staked his claim over the sofa, and honestly Akechi was too tired to fight him for it. He picked up his case from the sofa and moved to the kotatsu instead.

Ten minutes later, where Akechi had his papers strewn out on the table before him, he found his gaze slowly gravitating towards Mordred, where the cat was, seemingly, deep asleep. It was a surprisingly trusting move on his part, considering Akechi could easily kill him like this. 

He didn’t want to, obviously, but the potential was still there. 

This whole arrangement was bizarre, truth be told. Akechi tapped his pen against the table, his gaze unfocused as his thoughts turned inwards. He saw the raw power Mordred possessed as a persona-user, the potential of being a useful tool, and while he was leery of this ‘warning’ of his, Akechi couldn’t deny that it would be _nice_ to have his own hidden weapon, just in case Shido was planning on disposing of him ahead of schedule. 

Akechi had considered that possibility before, and had been frustrated by the fact that he couldn’t even effectively retaliate. Shido’s Palace was dangerously well-defended, and he knew Shido would have counter-measures against him, somehow, even subconsciously. It was a dangerous task for him to take on alone, but with Mordred? It might be less suicidal to attempt. Not that Akechi was scared of dying, but if it had to happen, he’d want to die dragging Shido down with him at least. 

However. 

Akechi’s gaze refocused on the cat. 

Mordred had been suspiciously vague about the source of his information. Any question of his true identity had been sidestepped. He refused to expand more on the ‘I am not a cat’ assertion. He didn’t explain his current plans beyond ‘scouting something out’ or ‘I’ll tell you once I’m certain’. He was a complete enigma, and yet was also brutally honest with him in ways that Akechi found both intriguing and frustrating. 

( _“Why are you so sure Shido will dispose of me soon?”_

 _“Because you’re a puppet reaching the end of its use. Shido doesn’t care about you beyond that.”_ )

Yes. Brutally honest. Akechi still felt the sting of that remark; it had him flinching from the rest of the conversation until he could hitch up his mask again. However, that didn’t stop him from noticing how bitterly _Mordred_ had said it. Like it was personal. Like he had experienced it.

(“ _...a puppet…”_ )

Who was Mordred? What was his tie to Shido? To Akechi? How did he know the things he knows?

That was why Akechi made this deal. Mordred was an ally, but he was also a potential enemy, and Akechi would prefer to keep him close, so very close, until he could peel back his layers and pry out every secret from him, until he was sure that he wasn’t a complete threat. If Mordred truly wanted to help him, he’ll endure such things for him.

If not… 

Well, like he said, what’s one more dead stray in an alleyway? 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> akechi is very fun to write bc he has so many FACES and there's something weirdly amusing at how he can have such a mild-mannered or sweet face on the outside but be. ya know. _that_ underneath. 
> 
> mordred's essentially his shoulder devil unleashed unto the world bc he doesn't have to uphold a detective prince persona, and can in fact, say whatever the hell he wants to people bc no one can understand him and those who can he doesn't care if they know what he's really like (lookin' at you phantom thieves)


	8. Kamoshida Arc: VII

**11 April 2016**

“ _This_ was not part of our deal.” 

“I believe ‘this’ was implied when I agreed to house and feed you during our partnership.” 

Mordred made a displeased grumbling noise, shifting in the bag he was crammed in and wondering how the hell Morgana made it seem so comfortable. Akechi had manilla folders and pens and other pointy assortments that kept jabbing him, barely giving him the figurative elbow room to squirm his way high enough to stick his snout through the small opening Akechi had unzipped for him. 

“A collar, I can tolerate,” he continued aggressively, “But taking me to a _pet groomer?_ A vet? I don’t need vaccinations-”

“Oh? Can you produce past medical documentation to prove that?” Akechi asked quietly, shifting the bag as if to adjust its strap over the shoulder. Mordred hissed as he was jostled into a particularly sharp corner of something hard and solid, “Haha, I thought not.”

Mordred retreated back into the bag to sulk, unable to really argue the point. 

It had been agreed between the two of them that it would be easier if Mordred masqueraded as Akechi Goro’s _pet._ It would mean no one would question Mordred’s presence or Akechi carting him about, even if the implications that came with said arrangement chafed. It didn’t help that Akechi was all _gung ho_ about doing things properly, and that included a check up and a professional’s touch in making sure Mordred didn’t have fleas or some other gross disease.

In retrospect, his dry jokes of coming from the gutter really backfired on him there.

“I should have gone to Joker,” Mordred grumbled. 

“Hm? What was that?”

“I said I should piss in your shoes later.”

Akechi didn’t reply - taking the high ground, or maybe self-conscious of being caught talking to himself. Mordred tried to stop feeling so seasick from the rough movements of the bag. 

Eventually they stopped moving, and Mordred felt the bag lurch as Akechi shifted it off his shoulder and onto his lap - a hiss of closing train doors and the low murmur of fellow passengers. On the subway. 

Mordred took this time to paw the bag open enough for him to stick his head out entirely, desperate for fresh air that didn’t smell of new leather, “Your bag is- _hey_ -”

Akechi’s hand muffled the rest of his words as he pushed his head back into the bag, speaking in a very low undertone, “Please stay in there until we arrive. I can’t speak openly like this.”

“Pretend to take a phone call,” Mordred growled, but he stayed inside the bag, “Or learn ventriloquism.”

Mordred could practically _feel_ the flat, unimpressed stare through the bag. 

But after a pause, Mordred felt Akechi’s lap shift, like he was reaching into his pocket, followed by a surprisingly sincere; “Akechi Goro speaking.” 

“I can’t believe…” Mordred let it go. While he doubted anyone would’ve looked twice at someone chatting to their cat, the fact that Akechi’s public persona was so well known might cause awkwardness. If one of his fans saw him, they would definitely blog about it. 

“How long is this appointment going to be?” Mordred demanded, “I do have that errand of mine to run today.” 

“The one by Aoyama-Itchome station?”

“Yes,” Mordred mulled over his next words. He didn’t want Akechi discovering Joker and the others just yet. At the very least, he wanted them to successfully change Kamoshida’s heart by themselves before introducing the volatile element that was Akechi Goro. Would he even report the Phantom Thieves to Shido if they were in their literal infancy? Mordred would have waited, observed - so, that meant Akechi would do the same. 

“It isn’t a secret,” Mordred said carefully, knowing that being continuously vague and mysterious might prompt Akechi to investigate behind his back, “I just need to confirm something first. It would be embarrassing to raise your expectations, only for it to fall flat, after all.”

“Hmm,” without being able to see Akechi’s face, his tone was worryingly vague. Mordred dug his claws into a folder, marring the beige surface, and perked up when Akechi continued, “I see, I understand. Well, we should be done by mid-afternoon at the latest. Do you need me to accompany you to the station?” 

Mordred felt a little wary at the offer, but saw no reason to turn it down that didn’t come across as suspicious, “I won’t say no.” 

“Excellent,” Akechi chirped in one of his Detective Prince voices, “I’ll see you then.” 

Catching the dismissal for what it was, Mordred stoically endured Akechi shifting about to put his phone away and tried to get as comfortable as he could. He had a long, long morning ahead of him. 

* * *

Once Akechi had unburdened himself of his new coworker he made a beeline for Aoyama-Itchome station. 

As amusing as it would be to stay and watch Mordred suffer at the hands of a well-meaning and professional pet groomer, he wanted to satisfy his curiosity even more. Mordred never explicitly said for Akechi to stay out of his business, much like how Akechi never told Mordred the same - a beneficial loophole to keep open, as Mordred couldn’t exactly spread his secrets to anyone. 

Aoyama-Itchome station was quiet when Akechi arrived. The initial morning rush of workers and students had thinned out considerably, and Akechi moved slowly through the station, trying to pinpoint what, exactly, a persona-user cat would find interesting around here. 

Nothing out of the ordinary leapt out of him, so Akechi left, rising to street level and noting that the morning rain had finally died down. It was possible that Mordred had lied to him, of course, and that his ‘errand’ was nowhere near Aoyama-Itchome station, but Akechi suspected that if he had, then whatever location he was actually investigating must still be very close by. Mordred was a _cat,_ and as sly and canny as he could be, he was severely limited in what public transportation he could use and when. Unless Mordred walked for miles to his true location, it stood to reason that his true objective was near. 

Akechi checked his navigation app - the mundane one - and hummed thoughtfully. 

Deduction was all about working through a situation logically in conjunction with critical thinking. Sometimes, however, when facts were scarce or mostly subjective, a human would have to rely on the less rational side of things: i.e gut feeling and instinct, and build up from there. 

And Akechi’s instincts _were_ sharp. He scrolled through the various locations close to Aoyama-Itchome station, skimming over different names until one leapt out at him with a sunburst of ‘ _hm’._

Shujin Academy. 

He thought he recognised the name. In fact, Akechi _did_ recognise it. The school name had cropped up several times in the prosecution's office several months back, complaints and allegations made by students or their parents towards an individual. There had been rumblings that it would become a fairly significant case, but before it gained momentum it had mysteriously been swept under the rug, complaints conveniently retracted, and the SIU Director using the power of sheer, utter denial to downplay the situation entirely. 

It was a cover up, obviously, but Akechi wasn’t sure why or who amongst Shido’s circle ordered it. Shido’s rot stretched into the strangest of places.

Akechi’s mind circled that thought. 

Even if this wasn’t the location Mordred had been investigating, perhaps Akechi should take a look regardless. Anything Shido was involved in was instantly Akechi’s business, after all, _especially_ if Shido made sure not to tell him about it. 

Mind made up, Akechi stowed his phone and set off at a brisk pace, checking his watch. Mordred would be expecting him back about noon, which didn’t leave him with much time for his own investigation, but that was fine. He’ll just ask Mordred to assist him in his investigation in Shujin, see how he’d respond. 

He had a gut feeling it would be _interesting._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> akechi definitely did not arrange to imprison mordred at the groomers just so he could go investigate shujin behind his back nope no no way! totally
> 
> next chapter will be akira chapter hehehe eheh ehe
> 
> (so far, for Mordred's codename we have 'Dread' or 'Mord', though I did also think of Hellcat (which was suggested semi-jokingly and semi-seriously). It does look like Dread is winning though!)
> 
> thanks for reading/kudos/commenting guys! ;w; it's keeping me very inspired for this~


	9. Kamoshida Arc: VIII

**11 April 2016**

Akira was still shivering from adrenaline when he made his quick retreat from the policemen. 

“I can’t believe you just walked off!” Ryuji complained as he caught up to him, making broad, sweeping gestures that ensured every passerby gave them a wide berth, “Aren’t you rattled at all, man? Geeze...”

Akira offered him a shrug, not trusting his voice at that moment. He was still in a state of semi-shock, unsure if he hallucinated the past hour or so. He touched the bridge of his nose, winced when he felt his glasses, and changed the movement into fidgeting with his hair instead. No mask, but… had that even happened?

“Did that really happen?” Ryuji unknowingly echoed, “Like, the- the castle, and the monster cat and… was that really _Kamoshida?_ ”

“I don't really know him,” Akira reminded him quietly, dropping his hand and shoving it into his pocket, “So.” 

Ryuji grunted, “He’s an asshole but - shit, that guy took it to the extreme! I didn’t wanna know what that pervy teacher looked like in a pink speedo, man.” 

Akira could agree with that, at least. 

The conversation lapsed a bit awkwardly at that point. Ryuji kept grimacing, glancing at him, then looking forwards, his shoulders drawn tense, muttering something about Kamoshida or the castle. Akira pretended not to notice, staring fixedly ahead with his hands digging deep into his pockets. The adrenaline was starting to ease off, but in its wake it left him with a bubbling urge to find the nearest corner and just stare into it for a bit.

Akira just wanted to get through this year without going into prison. He didn’t want to get yanked into supernatural castles with murderous creeps in pink speedos. He didn’t want to get into knife-fights with magical monsters and look stylish while doing so, blood fizzing and thumping with adrenaline, terror and- and something unnameable but what made every nerve tingle with an addictive edge to it. He didn’t want to feel that dizzy surge of _oh_ **_yes_ ** _that’s the spot_ when his mask peeled off and Arsène grinned underneath, liberating and seductive all at once. 

He blew out a short breath, goosebumps prickling down his arms as his heart stuttered at the memory. 

Fuck. 

He actually really wanted it a lot. 

* * *

Meanwhile, only a few paces behind the unlikely pair, Akechi was listening. 

It was pure serendipity that he came across the Shujin students just as they were accosted by the police. By hanging back, pretending to be preoccupied with his phone on the edges of the crowd, he caught a few interesting titbits that, understandably, the police brushed off as the overactive imagination of a strung out student. 

The students scurried off after a verbal warning from the police, and Akechi trailed after them. The dark-haired one was too quiet for him to hear this far back, but the blond one more than made up for it, occasionally griping loudly about ‘Kamoshida’, ‘castle’, and ‘weird monster shit’, his tone and body language jittery with tightly wound nerves. The dark-haired one was much harder to read, with hunched shoulders and his hands crammed deep into his pockets. He made sure to memorise both of their faces for later reference.

Akechi lowered his gaze from the pair to his phone, idly typing in ‘ _Kamoshida Shujin Academy’_. He got several hits instantly. 

Kamoshida Suguru, an alumnus from Shujin Academy and an Olympic medalist, currently employed as the PE teacher at the school. He used to be the leader of the National Volleyball Team and had a few TV interviews still circulating on the internet, albeit ones that were old and irrelevant. The only hiccup Akechi could find on such an otherwise sterling reputation was an article detailing a past sexual harassment complaint, one that didn’t go anywhere. Akechi doubted it was because the man was innocent of such a crime. 

The two students turned a corner towards Shujin. Akechi stopped there, just out of their immediate view, and glanced up from his phone to see the pair stop at the school gates and marvel at its surprising normality. Was it possible, then, that they had...

Akechi opened up the Meta-Nav and said clearly and precisely; “Kamoshida Suguru, school, castle.” 

_“...Candidate found.”_

* * *

Ryuji was right: Kamoshida _was_ an asshole. 

Vastly different to Castle-Kamoshida, though, in that he wasn’t an asshole leaping at every opportunity to ‘execute’ him for the smallest of slights, but Akira still got that same ‘tread carefully’ feeling around him. It didn’t help that the real Kamoshida was more intimidating in his gym clothes than that ridiculous pink speedo get up; his biceps were almost the size of Akira’s head. 

_overcompensation, maybe?_ An immature part of Akira quipped. 

But Kamoshida being weird and creepy wasn’t an immediate concern right now. Akira was more worried about his own mental state, what with random parts of the school corridor warping briefly into that strange castle and that fucked up fever dream that might have actually happened, if Ryuji experienced the exact same thing. The blond might’ve passed it off as a dream, but Akira… 

He sighed, digging his hands deep into his pockets as he exited out of the school gates. He was just behind the initial rush of the Go Home Club, thanks to meeting Ryuji up on the rooftop, so his departure wasn’t heralded with a hissing whisper of gossipers behind his back. Only half a day in school and he was already sick and tired of it. 

“Excuse me?”

Akira jerked his head up at the unexpected voice, jumpy despite himself, and locked eyes with a brown-haired boy about the same age as him who had startled a little at his sudden movement. 

“Oh, I apologise,” the boy said, ducking his head a fraction as he smiled sheepishly at him. It was, Akira thought painfully, a very cute look, “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“It’s fine,” Akira mumbled, lifting a hand from his pocket to twiddle his fringe. The other boy was watching him closely, and for a brief moment Akira was paranoid that somehow he had heard of his criminal record as well and was just coming to snoop on the _delinquent student_. Judging by his uniform, he wasn’t Shujin, but it’d be Akira’s luck that somehow every single person within a ten mile radius of him knew about it. 

But the boy didn’t bring up his criminal record. Instead he lifted his head, tucking a few locks of hair behind his ear as he said, “Haha, that’s good. In any case, I’m sorry to bother you but… have you seen a cat around here?”

Akira felt his pulse suddenly spike at the innocent question, his mind lunging to that monster cat, Morgana, and wondering inanely; _‘this guy too?!’_

“He has reddish-black fur and yellow eyes,” the boy continued, swiftly puncturing Akira’s panic, “A bit noisy, too.”

Akira lowered his hand from his fringe, sticking it back into his pocket; “...is it _your_ cat?”

“Ah,” the boy glanced away in clear embarrassment, “...yes. I seem to have lost him. I know it’s a little childish to worry, but…”

 _really cute,_ Akira thought privately, feeling the tension building in his shoulders loosen up. This wasn’t another grilling about him supposedly being a criminal ready to take over the school with an iron fist, and it was a problem he could actually help with too. 

“I saw a cat like that recently,” he said, jerking his thumb over his shoulder towards the school gates, “He was sat on the wall there.”

The other student perked up, “Oh? How long ago was that?”

“Er, yesterday,” Akira admitted, realising that meant the cat was probably long gone by now. The other boy’s shoulders slumped at that and Akira shrugged awkwardly, “Sorry.”

“No, no, it’s fine,” the boy sighed, then jolted as if forgetting something, “Oh, I apologise. I haven’t even introduced myself. Akechi Goro,” he gave a polite bow, “And you’re… a student of Shujin?”

“Yeah, just transferred,” Akira said, “Kurusu Akira.” 

“Nice to meet you, Kurusu-kun,” Akechi said with a bright smile that left Akira’s insides feeling fuzzy and squirmy, “And thank you for your time. I’m sorry to have bothered you with such a trivial matter.” 

“Hey, losing a pet isn’t trivial,” Akira said, “If I see him again, I’ll…” 

He paused when he realised that a) he didn’t know this guy’s number and b) he didn’t know where he lived either, so there wasn’t much he could actually do. Thankfully Akechi sensed his inner struggle and slipped his phone out of his pocket. 

“I can give you my number,” Akechi said kindly, ducking his head again as he glanced up at him, “If that’s okay?”

 _cha-ching!_ The immature part of Akira’s brain yowled, and he couldn’t hold back a smile, thinking maybe this day wasn’t such a bust after all. 

“Yeah, that’s fine.”

No sooner had they exchanged numbers did Akechi’s phone buzz. He gave Akira an apologetic smile and quickly answered it; “Yes? ...oh! Yes, I’m terribly sorry, I lost track of time. I hope they aren't too annoyed at having to wait? ... ahaha, yes, that happens, I apologise...”

It was probably rude, but Akira couldn’t help but eavesdrop as Akechi chatted amicably with whoever it was on the other side. He couldn’t hear what the other person was saying, but they didn’t sound overly annoyed. Akechi hung up soon after promising to be there soon, and sighed. 

“Oh dear, someone is very unhappy with me right now,” Akechi joked lightly.

“Girlfriend?” Akira fished casually. 

“Hm? Oh, ah, no,” Akechi laughed, sounding both startled and flustered at once, “No, no, it’s work. I had an appointment and forgot to keep it.”

Akira glanced down at Akechi’s school uniform pointedly, “A part-time job this early in the day?”

“My circumstances are… a bit different to the average student,” Akechi said vaguely, tucking his phone in his pocket and gifting him with another bright smile, though this one didn’t seem to reach his eyes, “I must be going, but, thank you for your time, Kurusu-kun.”

Akira nodded, wondering if he could get away with doing a quick circuit of Shujin to see if his cat was still here. Probably not, he was risking too much just loitering here instead of heading straight back to Leblanc and into Sojiro’s no doubt angry arms. Lecture. Whatever. 

“No problem. I’ll call if I find your cat.”

Akechi nodded and strolled away at a quick pace towards the station. Akira almost kicked himself when he realised he could’ve asked to walk with him. Ah, might be too creepy to catch up with him, so Akira waited for a minute before following after him, slipping his phone out.

Akechi Goro. Maybe he had a social media account?

It was then that Akira discovered that the cute guy he just exchanged numbers with was also _a little_ famous. Cha-ching indeed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :3c


	10. Kamoshida Arc: IX

**11 April 2016.**

“You _left_ me-”

“My deepest apologies, I lost track of time-”

“-for _four hours-_ ”

“Oh, no need to worry about it, Akechi-san! I understand how work can-”

“- _alone with this madwoman-_ ”

“Yes, thank you for understanding. I hope he wasn’t much trouble-”

“ _-that tortured me-”_

“Oh no, Akechi-san, he’s a bit of a noisy one, but he didn’t claw or bite me once! So very well-behaved-”

“ _FOR FOUR HOURS.”_

“Thank you again,” Akechi chirped, his Detective Prince smile a little strained about the edges from Mordred’s loud complaints threatening to drown out his conversation with Natsuko-san, “I’ll remember this place the next time Mordred needs another session.”

“Thank you,” Natsuko-san said with genuine cheeriness, “And goodbye, Mordred-chan! You were a delight!”

_“I hated every minute!”_

Akechi very quickly left the store, gripping the strap of his bag in a white-knuckled grip as Mordred’s yowls died down to more socially acceptable grumbling, shifting about in the bag enough to occasionally hit Akechi in the back. 

“That,” Mordred hissed, wriggling free of the bag and leaning his paws against Akechi’s shoulder, his kitten nose shoved against his ear, “was _dehumanising._ ”

“It is a good thing you’re not human then, isn’t it?” Akechi muttered under his breath, taking pains not to move his lips. A few passersby were already giving him odd looks with Mordred sticking out of his bag like that, “You weren’t harmed, were you?”

“My dignity was,” Mordred said sulkily, “And I didn’t like my claws being clipped.”

Akechi thought back to the claw marks on his sofa and found himself entirely unsympathetic. 

“Where were you?” Mordred asked suspiciously, “You didn’t _lose track of time_.”

“No, I was fully aware I was keeping you,” Akechi said, tone syrupy-sweet, “I went to Aoyome-Itchome.”

Mordred went tense, then quickly relaxed.

“Oh?” the cat’s light tone rivalled Akechi’s to an impressive degree, “I didn’t realise you had business there.”

“I didn’t,” Akechi admitted, “But while there, I did discover something…”

Mordred’s claws flexed into his shoulder, but recently clipped as they were, they didn’t penetrate the thick layer of his blazer and shirt. Akechi allowed him a moment to stew, his smile perfectly placid and easy as he turned the corner to the street and checked his watch. Cutting it a little fine, but he had planned it well making the vet appointment in the late afternoon. 

“What did you discover,” Mordred said, his tone so flat it was more of a statement than a genuine question. 

“A Palace in Shujin Academy for a Kamoshida Suguru, and two students that potentially entered it. Their names are Kurusu Akira and Sakamoto, first name not yet obtained,” Akechi paused before asking, innocently, “Sound familiar?”

Mordred made a noise like someone was extracting his spine with their bare hands, “ _Really.”_

“Hah,” Akechi couldn’t help but feel smug, and it put a little spring in his step, “Surprised?”

“....not really. I suspected you would go behind my back sooner or later,” Mordred said wryly, “What are you going to do about it?”

“I should be asking that question of you,” Akechi shot back, only to wince when he realised he’d raised his voice above his previous near-inaudible whisper, “Scouting out others, are we?”

“Something like that,” Mordred slinked back into the bag, and kicked his hind legs so he hit Akechi in the shoulder-blade, “I’ll tell you later, in private.” 

Akechi almost shook his bag to get his answers _now,_ but he could wait. He was _very_ good at being patient, after all. 

* * *

The vet check-up had been mind-numbingly routine and also ate a bit into Akechi’s wallet. Mordred was checked out, was found to have a sprain in his hind leg and also had his shots. Oh, and was microchipped, though Mordred seemed none the wiser about that, as it had been at the tail end of several injections and the cat had zoned out somewhere in the middle of them. 

Akechi decided not to enlighten him. He had a feeling Mordred would kick up an unnecessary fuss about it. 

The sun was beginning to make its slow descent when he finally arrived back at his apartment, his shoulders stiff from carrying around his cat and that bone-deep, unnatural fatigue that came on the heels of a Metaverse visit. He barely unlocked his door and opened it when Mordred sprung free of the bag, leaping off his shoulder and darting off somewhere into the darkened apartment. 

Akechi wished he had his boundless energy. Must be a cat thing. 

“I hope you’re not trying to avoid our talk, Mordred,” he called as he turned on the lights and shut the door behind him. After dropping his bag near the door and toeing off his shoes, he gravitated towards his kitchenette, rubbing the back of his neck. He’d skipped lunch in favour of investigating Shujin and his stomach was protesting it thoroughly right now. 

“Of course not,” Mordred’s voice floated up from behind the counter, and when Akechi rounded it, he saw the cat sitting expectantly in front of the fridge.

“But you want us to eat first?” Akechi guessed, taking the hint and opening it. 

There were a few instant meals and a convenience store tuna sandwich he didn’t get round to having last night, as well as some bottles of juice. Nothing cat-friendly in here. He took out the sandwich though, closing the fridge with his hip as he turned to one of the cabinets overhead instead. 

In his peripheral, he saw Mordred jump onto the counter - a little awkwardly, his clipped claws making quiet scratching noise as he wriggled the last little bit up and sniffed at the wrapped sandwich, “Is this for me?”

“ _No,_ it’s for me,” Akechi shooed him away before taking down Mordred’s meal from the cabinet: wet cat food, promising to taste _exactly_ like chicken and gravy, “Tuna is bad for cats.”

Mordred gave him an offended look, but he obligingly left his sandwich alone. A few minutes later and the pair of them were sat at the kotatsu, Akechi eating his convenience store sandwich and Mordred whiskers deep in a bowl of appetising cat food. Akechi had a random, passing thought wondering how that would taste like. 

“So,” Akechi started, “Shujin.” 

Mordred lifted his head and licked his chops, “What about it?”

Really. Akechi stared levelly at him. 

The cat’s ear twitched before he sighed heavily, straightening up completely, “Why don’t you tell me what information you have gathered first.”

Akechi set down his sandwich, folding his hands and tilting his chin, as if preparing to deliver a formal report, “As I told you before: a Palace belonging to one Kamoshida Suguru, and two students who are likely potential persona-users. When I entered the Palace, the Shadows within were on high alert, with heavy implication of an earlier persona-user agitating them.”

“Hm, yes, you got their names, didn’t you?” Mordred muttered.

“And number,” Akechi added impishly. 

Mordred jerked, blinking at him rapidly in what Akechi was beginning to recognise as an expression of shock in the cat; “What- _how_?”

“I asked?” Akechi answered with mock-innocence, tilting his head with his best friendly smile, “Kurusu-kun, I think it was? I told him how I had lost my cat, and he was eager to help me-”

Mordred interrupted with a breathy sounding laugh, “You used _me_ to get his number?” 

“And I shall be using you again,” Akechi said, “Tomorrow, you will go to Shujin and _allow_ yourself to be caught by Kurusu-kun.”

“Who will then call you, because he found your cat, and you meet up with him?” Mordred finished, sounding suspicious. He was clearly fishing for Akechi’s angle, “For…?”

Akechi didn’t answer his question; “Why are you scouting out other persona-users, Mordred?”

“...” For a long moment, there was no answer, but then; “Support.”

“For…?”

Mordred dipped his head, pushing at his food bowl with his paw for a long, tense moment; “What are you planning to do with- Kurusu-kun.” He stumbled over the name oddly. 

Akechi filed that verbal stumble away. 

“Answering a question with another question?” he purred softly. 

“You did it first,” Mordred returned, equally soft. 

“Haha, I suppose I did,” Akechi leaned back, spreading his hands in a placating gesture, “Are you worried I’m planning on eliminating him?”

“Yes.”

“The thought did cross my mind,” Akechi admitted, “As well as being... _shocked_ that I am not the only one with this gift, it is a considerable risk to have an amateur persona-user running about the Metaverse, potentially getting in my way.”

Mordred was watching him with those eerie yellow eyes. The unsaid _‘but…’_ floated between them. 

“...but,” Akechi continued, “At the same time…”

He leaned forwards, elbowed on the table, fingers linked together, hiding his mouth behind his hands as he stared at Mordred, “As you said: support. Shido… has no real reach within the Metaverse. It is just me. _I_ know it better than anyone else, and these new persona-users… they can…”

 _be mine,_ he finished quietly in his mind. Shido’s conspiracy fellows were all like the vile man himself: corrupted adults, ugly, selfish rotting pieces of shit that didn’t deserve the oxygen they breathed in. Yet, they were the ones who clutched at Akechi’s leash, even as he drew closer and closer with a pretty smile concealing venomous fangs, yanked him this way and that and fed into Shido’s smothering ego. Akechi had no allies there, and any attempts to change that would have Shido ripping them away and crushing them beneath his heel. 

But in the Metaverse…? That was Akechi’s world. Shido’s reach was only possible there because _Akechi_ allowed it. He could have his _own_ group, leash them and finally have enough strength to storm Shido’s Palace whenever he pleased. He couldn’t let Shido _know_ that, but Akechi knowing he could take him down whenever he wanted, without a trace? Knowing that he _literally held Shido’s life in his hands?_ He had been planning on waiting and waiting and waiting, until Shido was at his highest point and pulling the trigger in plain daylight, but… to kill him _and_ get away with it… ha, he might even tell him before storming his Palace, let him sweat and tremble and break apart knowing that Akechi was somewhere in his heart, preparing to destroy him in the most final way possible. 

Behind his hands, a vicious, hungry smile curled his lips, a shuddering, excited breath leaving him at the very _thought_ of it. 

“...it can be our little secret for now,” Akechi decided, his voice husky, “Shido doesn’t need to know.”

“No, he doesn’t,” Mordred said very slowly and very carefully, eyeing Akechi like he was expecting something else, “So, we’ll get closer to Kurusu-kun and the other boy?”

“Mm,” Akechi smoothed down his predatory smile into something gentler, lowering his hands, “Win their trust.”

“And make them ours,” Mordred finished, and there was a glint in his gaze, “I understand.” 

“Of course,” Akechi picked up his sandwich again, giving him a more genuine smile, “We think alike, after all.” 

Mordred laughed at that, his yellow eyes bright with some inside joke that Akechi wasn't privy to.

He didn't elaborate on why he found that so funny.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> when you realise that maybe in this instance 3rd semester akechi is probably more emotionally stable than p5 akechi at this point
> 
> (also yes the vet did suggest a neuter but as mordred knew where akechi slept it was politely turned down)
> 
> now let's see how this disaster unfolds hahah....


	11. Kamoshida Arc: X

**12 April 2016.**

Mordred’s dreams delved into the deep blue of a dimly lit Leblanc. Igor was behind the counter, his expression shrouded in darkness, while the walls creaked and groaned like the bowels of a ship. Over the sound of rain, he could hear the distant whine of a klaxon alarm. 

“You have shifted Fate by a significant degree,” Igor’s voice was surprisingly clear. Mordred could barely keep his eyes open, his body limp on the table, “Far earlier than anticipated.”

“Fate…” Mordred’s voice felt like syrup. That klaxon alarm was drilling a dull ache of pain through his ribs, limbs twitching from phantom pain of _bullet to the chest- second rib, cracked, the second bullet in the sternum, pressure build, the stuttering chokes of fluid in the windpipe-_

Leblanc’s walls wavered. 

“-midst of a collision,” Igor was saying. Leblanc’s floor swayed upwards, and in the gloom, Mordred could see white sea-foam splash against the glass door, greyish swirls of the sea, “Never have I seen the Velvet Room in such a volatile state.”

Something jerked in Mordred’s brain, a flash of- _something,_ a glimmer of understanding that the path forked and he had chosen - a significant shift, as Igor said. He barely managed to lift his head and rasp; “Did I… choose right?”

In the terrifyingly close distance, something squealed, like gears and clicks of a blast door screeching down. In the darkness of the fading Leblanc, in the corner of his eye, Mordred could see something there. He didn’t look, even as - _bullet to the chest-_

“That is for you to decide,” Igor said. 

_-second rib, cracked-_

Leblanc’s floor swung downwards, pitching hard on the unsteady sea. 

_-the second bullet in the sternum-_

“What do you consider ‘right’, for your path to freedom?” 

_-pressure build-_

“You?” 

_-the stuttering chokes of-_

_“_ Or the other you?”

_-fluid in the windpipe-_

“Until you know whose redemption you are committed to,” Igor finished, “The answer will not reveal itself to you.” 

The screech of the blast doors clanged shut and the blue of Leblanc winked out into complete darkness. There was the taste of metal in his mouth and he was _Akechi_ again dying alone in Shido’s ship and he was scared even as he told himself he _wasn’t_ -

A glint of light fluttered above him, delicate wings of a butterfly and-

Mordred jerked awake with a spasm, on his feet before he was even fully conscious, heart thundering somewhere in his throat as he stood stock still, back arched and all his fur fluffed out, his eyes wide and unseeing as the bland wall of Akechi’s living room wall loomed over him. 

Akechi’s alarm in the next room went off a fraction of a minute later. 

Jerking like he’d been electrocuted, Mordred forced himself to relax, even if his limbs felt numb and shaky. The dream he had was quickly dripping between his fingers like fine sand, but he still remembered that particular feeling - the throb of bullet wounds in his chest and the sick, trembling fear of dying alone in the bowels of a ship belonging to a man who thought him as disposable as a cheap tool. 

A nightmare. Just a nightmare. One that _won’t_ happen again. 

He neatly compartmentalised the moment. Sliced it into halves, fourths, eighths and placed it delicately in a box and buried it deep inside of himself to be forgotten. 

Mordred leapt off the sofa, firmly back into his role of ‘weird talking cat’, and trotted over to Akechi’s bedroom door. It was left ajar, so he let himself in, blinking in the darkness to see his other self slowly sitting up in bed looking thoroughly disorientated and squinty-eyed. It seemed he hadn’t slept well either. 

“Someone’s _tired_ ~” Mordred said in a sing-song tone, pitched just right to come off as grating. He was rewarded with Akechi giving him a sour look, “When did you sleep?”

Akechi picked up his phone and stared dully at it for a sluggish moment, “...three hours ago.” 

Mordred saw the time before Akechi’s phone darkened. It was five in the morning. 

He hopped onto the bed as Akechi got out of it, making himself comfortable as his other self stumbled through his morning routine. It was a Tuesday, so that meant this morning was Akechi’s ‘work out’ day, a nice biking route along Inokashira Park. Mordred wouldn’t be able to accompany him to that, but he _did_ need to get to Shujin Academy today and he’d rather set off early before the streets got busy. 

Strangely, Akechi seemed distracted by something. Mordred watched with narrowed eyes as Akechi rubbed his chest idly, heel of his palm digging into his sternum as his face creased with discomfort. 

“Something wrong?” Mordred asked idly. 

“Hm? Oh,” Akechi quickly dropped his hand, “No.”

Mordred waited. 

“I merely had a… peculiar dream,” Akechi said, the words sounding like they were being extracted from him with pliers, “Perhaps I shouldn’t have had that sandwich…” 

Mordred gave him a weird look, but he dropped the subject. Akechi was hitching up his Detective Prince persona, his eyes dulling as his smile brightened, and Mordred didn’t want to endure the full brunt of that mask so early in the morning. From the outside looking in, he realised just how unnerving that look was on his face. 

“I have already forgotten the details,” Akechi lied, and resumed getting changed, “Are you leaving for Shujin soon, Mordred?”

“I may as well.”

Akechi nodded absently, and their conversation lapsed into silence. Not quite awkward, not quite comfortable. Mordred disliked the feeling of it. 

He still followed Akechi out into the main apartment, once his other self finished getting changed and freshened up in the bathroom. Even when going out on a bike ride, he was always meticulous about his appearance - fashionable sports kit, his hair tied back in a stylishly messy and low ponytail, the makeup to cover up the deep bags under his eyes. It had been his armour in the past, his appearance, and honestly Mordred was relieved he didn’t have to do that himself anymore. 

“It’s best if you wait until after school hours to be discovered by Kurusu-kun,” Akechi told him as he took out the bowl and another tin of cat food. He didn’t get any food out for his own breakfast, “My hours are inflexible, as you know.”

“I know,” Mordred was actually surprised Akechi managed to make time yesterday for his snooping about Shujin, though it explained why he went to bed so late.

Akechi didn’t reply. His eyes were heavy-lidded, and his movements rough and choppy as he scraped the cat food into the bowl and then placed it on the floor for Mordred. Something was less tense in his expression though, his shoulders lowering from their tight hunch from when he woke up. 

Still, it was a surprise when Akechi reached out and gave him a quick scratch behind the ears; it lasted for a few seconds, and Akechi snatched his hand back like he expected to be bitten. Mordred was too startled to even think about it. 

“Yes, well,” Akechi straightened up, quickly washed out the empty can to put it in the recycling, “I have left the balcony door unlocked for you.” 

Mordred watched as Akechi practically fled his own apartment after that, utterly mystified. 

Odd. 

* * *

Mordred quickly put Akechi’s strange behaviour out of mind, and had mostly forgotten it by the time he reached Shujin. 

He ended up walking the whole way. For a human, it was an hour and a half trek, so for a cat with a far shorter stride and sporting a sprained leg, it was double that, so it was a little after eight o’clock in the morning that he arrived at Shujin Academy, the first lessons of the day already starting. 

Mordred located that hole in the mesh fence and squirmed through. He could just find a comfortable spot to nap and doze, but he wasn’t the sort to just sit around and twiddle his figurative thumbs. He never had a chance, in the - past, to snoop about Shujin Academy in close detail. 

The day ticked by at an agonisingly slow pace, Mordred hiding in the shadows, under bushes and benches and in the narrow space between the wall and the vending machines, watching the students go about their lives. They gossiped loudly and often, and it was, unsurprisingly, all about Joker and what a violent, evil person he was, how he did drugs and committed crimes, was scum of the earth and how could the school do this to them? Didn’t they know they had _exams?_ How could they focus with such a dangerous person in their midst? What if he _spoke to them?_

It made Mordred sick. 

“No way! That can’t be true!”

“It _is!_ I heard it from Mimi-chan that this wasn’t even the _first time_ he was done for assault, I mean, like, apparently he’s been doing this since he was _twelve._ Y’know, beating the shit out of people, and gettin’ away with it because he looks all soft-like. _”_

“Geeze, how’s he not in juvie yet...”

Mordred glowered at the polished shoes inches from his nose, ignoring the vending machine he was crouched under clanking and groaning as it dispensed a drink. The shoes shifted, a creak of the flap as the girl retrieved her drink. 

“I dunno. Maybe he, ya know…” she trailed off and the pair broke out into salacious giggles. 

“ _Oooh,_ he does look kinda, mm, pretty, right? You know, he looks so shy and cute, but I can see him, like, seducing his way out of jail time. Maybe this time he wasn’t willing to put out?”

“Maybe the police back in his hometown got bored of him,” a crack-hiss of a can opening, “I mean, with how much I heard he got in trouble, he’s probably well-used goo _ooaaaaaaah!!”_

Mordred didn’t even remember _moving,_ just one moment, he was coiled up like a spring ready to snap, his chest a quick-boiling cauldron of disgust and anger as the students gossiped, the next he was barrelling straight into the girl’s shins hissing like a screaming kettle. It was that hot-thump of rage clouding his vision scarlet, that metal taste in his mouth that made him want to claw and claw and claw until it vanished. He barely felt the girl kick him off her leg and bolt, screaming with her friend about a rabid cat, and stood there on shaking limbs as he snarled at nothing, all his fur fluffed out and his eyes wide and crazed. 

The can was dropped on the floor, chugging bright orange fizz onto the cement. 

Mordred wanted to kill something. He wanted to _kill_ something. An ugly itch that clawed against the insides of his ribs and dug into his soft organs, but he compressed it all down. One deep breath, two short exhales, one deep, short exhale, and Mordred could scrape the spilled out parts of his psyche back into its designated box. His fur flattened and his legs stopped trembling. That metal-tasting madness fled as swiftly as it came. 

He should relocate. 

He slinked his way away from the vending machines and went into a nearby hedgeline that trailed the path between two of the school buildings. Twigs prodded and jabbed into his ribs, but Mordred made it work as the school buzzed around him, the gossip of Akira swiftly replaced by the gossip of a ‘demon cat’ assaulting innocent young girls. It wouldn’t last, but it would do for now. 

Mordred didn’t examine why he reacted the way he did. He just sliced the moment up into halves, fourths, eighths and placed it delicately in a box and buried it deep inside of himself to be forgotten.

Akira. 

He’ll have to meet him again soon. Mordred wasn’t sure how to feel about it. Would he understand him, now that he had visited the Metaverse? And if he did, should he pretend to be a normal cat? Akechi never directed him which role he should play. An oversight? Or was he content to leave it to Mordred’s discretion? 

His eyes slid half shut, watching a beetle walk over his paw. 

He wasn’t sure what the right choice was. 

Right choice… 

The phrase lodged weirdly in his brain, but Mordred shook it off, resting his head on his paws. The beetle flew off. 

He should pretend, for now. As always. Like he ever did anything else. 

It was strange, but he felt a weird twinge of homesickness for that false reality. He never had to pretend there with Joker and Sumire. 

He missed it. 

(He carved that feeling in halves as well, but never got round to the fourths and eighths and burying it in a box. He just held the two parts and thought; _ah._ )

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whether akechi is himself or a cat they're still both emotionally constipated huh... 
> 
> what is happening in the velvet room? turns out akechi's traumatised heart is making things go fuNKY (or is it something else??? maybe)


	12. Kamoshida Arc: XI

**12 April 2016.**

By the time school ended Mordred managed to stop feeling sorry for himself. 

Actually, that was a lie. He still felt sorry for himself, but it was now sharp-edged with disgust and self-recrimination. Mordred knew how to deal with anger - you stoked it, clutched it tight in your fist even though it charred your palm black and made you numb, tighter and tighter until the agony was all-encompassing and drowned out everything else. Mordred _held it,_ tight, like a lifeline, and by the time he found Joker and his stupid friend, he was all but vibrating with it, rage winding through his bones as easily as razor wire slicing soft tissue. 

It was a shitty mindset to be in, an even shittier coping mechanism, but the alternative was to mope listlessly in the hedgerow for the rest of the day and honestly Mordred would rather die. 

So, anger it was. 

Joker was standing by the front school gates with Sakamoto-san, blithely chatting out the existence of Palaces right there in the middle of the _public_. Once more, Mordred wondered how the fuck the Phantom Thieves ever avoided being caught with how loudly they blabbed about the Metaverse with no care or subtlety. Oh right, Shido’s plan to frame them for the Mental Shutdowns. Can’t do that if they got caught right out of the starting gate. 

That might still happen, depending on what complicated long-con plan Akechi impulsively cooked up last night. Mordred was in the dark about it, but found himself not caring. It actually made his life easier if Akechi decided to- 

He snapped out of his thoughts when Joker and Sakamoto-san abruptly walked off, blindsiding Mordred entirely who had expected them, like the idiots they were, to use the Meta-Nav there and then in full view of everyone. Maybe they were actually being discreet? Going somewhere out of the way to phase into the Metaverse? 

Curiosity eclipsing his unhealthy anger, Mordred slipped out of the ornamental hedge he’d been crouched in lining Shujin’s outer wall, leaping heavily onto the pavement below. He followed at a distance, irritably dodging the careless footfalls of humans too self-absorbed to see where they were putting their feet. The anger crawled back, its fingernails sharp and catching in his soft spots, when he realised there was no quick ducking into a nearby alleyway or anything. They were just. Walking. What the hell were they playing at? 

Joker and Sakamoto-san stopped just short of station entrance - then they turned around and walked back towards the school. Mordred had to dart into an alleyway just to avoid early detection, crouching in the shadow of a dumpster as the two students strolled by.

What… were they doing? 

The answer came to him when they returned to the school and they _immediately_ walked back to the station for another loop _,_ Sakamoto-san expressing frustration at making a ‘wrong turn’ somewhere.

It was- 

They-

 _they don’t know how they got into the palace,_ Mordred through with a blank sort of bewilderment, not following them for their second loop. He returned to his position in the hedge instead, to sit and wait for the morons to return, _they honestly don’t have a fucking clue._

Didn’t they notice the _giant GLOWING RED APP_ on their phone!? Did they not click on it and think _hmm this is strange it’s asking for keywords to another world maybe this is how i got to that weird castle full of monsters??_ Wasn’t that how they _got_ into Kamoshida’s Palace in the first place? How did they- even- 

Mordred couldn’t even put his head in his hands - _because he didn’t have any!_ \- and paws made a poor substitute, but he tried anyway. He stuck his face into the loamy dirt under him and lifted his paws awkwardly over his head. 

Argh.

This was how he broke his cover, wasn’t it? He was going to watch them walk and walk and walk in an endless loop until he snapped, and then he was going to latch onto Joker’s leg and sink his claws in (maybe bite) and scream at the top of his lungs because, abruptly, this whole insane situation clicked in his brain and he realised _where the fuck he was_ and _what the fuck was happening_ , right now, right that second, like he just finished the terminal velocity stage of his fall and now the ground was coming up to acquaint itself to his fragile skeleton. 

_they have no idea what they’re doing,_ Mordred thought again, numbly, _not a clue. they have no idea, not a clue, they couldn’t even beat up a fucking jack frost right now and i'm expecting them to somehow save-_

Anger was a good emotion to clutch to, because Mordred knew how to handle anger. But right now that anger was rapidly disintegrating into a sick kind of anxiety, the sort where the back of your heel catches the edge of a wet step and you _slip,_ stomach going weightless and your heart stopping as your brain goes _fuck_ because you realise: _ah, shit_.

Rationally, Mordred knew that this was the best of a horrible situation. He couldn’t sit back and let things proceed as they already had because he was selfish enough to want better, and callous enough to completely fuck up the Phantom Thieves’ dynamic to get it. Irrationally, Joker had no idea what he was doing right now and the realisation of that _terrified_ Mordred for reasons he couldn’t even guess. Didn’t _want_ to guess _._ The Akechi of now would eat this Joker alive and spit out the bones and it was as if someone was squatting in Mordred’s brain, frantically flipping the light switch and screaming _‘wrong! wrong! wrong!’_ because he realised just how much of a world ending disaster this could potentially end up being.

It was, honestly, the quietest and most composed mental breakdown he had ever experienced. 

Joker and Sakamoto returned as Mordred finished frantically shoving the vibrating parts of his mind back into its box. He compartmentalised - ragged, rough, not the smooth practiced movements of Akechi Goro, Detective Prince By Day, Assassin By Night, but the feral, half-desperate snatches of Akechi Goro, Dead Man Walking In A False Reality. The things making his brain scream were ripped up and crammed under the metaphorical bed and Mordred was Mordred again.

“-hey, that reminds me - didn’t you have a navigation app thingy on, back then?”

Psychotic breaks were ruthlessly punted out of Mordred’s brain space at those magic words, his focus snapping onto Sakamoto with a laser focus rivalled only by that of a heat-seeking missile. 

“Navigation app?” Joker asked, sounding fucking clueless. 

Mordred was going to kill him. 

Apparently Sakamoto was the brains of this operation, Joker being lobotomised at some point in this timeline while Mordred wasn’t looking, and after a too-long brainstorming session where they realised yes, this suspicious app on Joker’s phone actually was what transported them into the Metaverse, Mordred belatedly realised that they were planning on skipping into a Palace, _right now,_ with no clue on what they were doing. 

He knew, rationally, that they wouldn’t _die,_ because obviously they survived just fine on their own the first time round, but Joker’s appalling obliviousness had Mordred _irrationally_ worried that somehow they were going to blunder into a stupid Palace trap and die because that was the exact kind of sucker punch the universe would pull on him. And then what? What the hell was Mordred meant to do then? He couldn’t imagine a good ending for Akechi without-

He didn’t finish that thought. 

No. No, no, no, he was _not_ going to let his paranoia get the better of him. Joker was like a cockroach; nothing could kill him except a tactical nuclear strike on his exact location. Mordred wasn’t going to fuss and stalk them in a fretting anxiety fit, because that was beneath him and besides, he didn’t care. His only job today was to jump in front of Joker and make him call Akechi and become a stupid prop for a bigger purpose once more. That was _it._

Unfortunately Mordred didn’t get a say in the matter, because Sakamoto, the brains of the two, pulled all _three of them_ into the Metaverse by recklessly using the app without thinking. Mordred felt that sickening compressing/stretching feeling of being warped to the other world, his head dipping from the weight of his mask, and _sighed._

Really. 

Luckily the hedge remained in the Cognitive World, and Mordred stayed there with his eyes closed as the two would-be Phantom Thieves charged through the lowered drawbridge and into the Palace proper. 

He should follow them.

No, he shouldn’t. He already confirmed Joker was a persona-user. That’s all he needed. The rest of the plan was up to Akechi. 

No, he really, really should follow them. 

Mordred dug his claws into the loamy soil under him and hunched down low, his eyes squeezed shut. He hated this. Fucking- feelings and shit. The False Reality ruined him, completely fucking ruined him. 

He managed to stubbornly stay in his hedge for five long, agonising minutes before he uncoiled with a spat out curse, leaping out and following after the idiots. 

* * *

Akechi smoothed his thumb under his eye, frowning at his reflection when the makeup rubbed away to show the bruised colour underneath. Sae-san had commented that he looked tired, and Akechi, internally fizzing at the idea that somehow his efforts to stay meticulous had failed, was now scrutinising his appearance in the agency's bathroom mirror with a firm slant to his mouth. 

He did look tired. He hadn’t properly hidden the stark bruises under his eyes today. 

Well, it wasn’t the end of the world, but the fact that it was _Sae-san_ who had pointed it out had his guts twisting into knots. Sae-san, who could comment, off-handedly that he _‘looked tired’_ , overheard by anyone, and no doubt crawling up to Shido’s ear, and the man himself leaning on his shoulder and asking _“is the pressure getting to you,_ **_Akechi_** _?”_ with that fucking _smirk,_ like he discovered a new soft spot to gently dig his knife into and work it, millimetre and millimetre, until he struck bone and gristle and all Akechi could do was smile like it was the best fucking thing to experience and say; _"no, of course not, Shido-san. I'm still ready to serve, Shido-san."_

He dug his thumbnail into the delicate skin beneath his eyelid. 

It was because of- a bad night. Akechi was no stranger to unsettled dreams, was used to his subconscious spitting out a parade of nightmarish visions of his victims in the throes of their psychosis - like snapping a pane of thin glass in half with his bare hands, except the snap was never neat and even and instead would splinter and cut into his palms and fingers and that was that. Fine. Akechi was fine with those nightmares. 

Killing people was easy when there was no gory mess left behind. Shadows didn’t even bleed. They just crumbled, like kicking down a sandcastle. His mind might snag on those moments, churn them out as blurry nightmares, but Akechi flicked away the uneasiness like how he’d get rid of a piece of lint off his sleeve. Unthinkingly. Easy. 

But last night- different. The whine of a klaxon alarm and him alone in the dark, unable to breathe past the blood in his throat. The nightmare had been swift, fleeting, most of the details stripped out, but it felt like it lasted eons when he had woken up that morning, tasting blood and feeling like a Shadow had kicked him full force in the sternum. The long, hard bike ride he did afterwards didn't take the edge off in the slightest. 

Akechi wasn’t sure where that dream came from. 

Mordred, maybe. He insisted on Shido’s plans to kill him, and his subconsciousness must have regurgitated it as an imagined scenario. The explanation sounded right to him, but that edge of uneasiness refused to completely dissipate. It was pissing him off. 

He sighed and left his tired-looking face be. He was done for the day here, so it didn’t matter. The rest of his work could be done at his apartment, and he didn’t have to keep appearances _there._

 _Though, Mordred should have caught Kurusu-kun by now,_ Akechi thought with a frown, checking his phone just in case. No missed calls, and it was already ticking to an hour after Shujin Academy finished. Maybe Kurusu-kun had joined a club?

Akechi tapped his fingernail against the plastic casing of his phone for a moment, inwardly cursing the fact that he couldn’t communicate with Mordred to find out. The alternative was to amble over to Shujin and pretend he was doing another search for his cat if caught. 

_This time it wouldn’t even be a lie,_ he thought wryly, pushing his phone back into his pocket, _well, maybe a walk will clear my head._

Akechi gave his reflection one last look over, giving himself a smile. He tweaked it until it was perfectly boyish and cute, drawing attention away from his dull, dull, dull eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i tell myself to not delve too deep into the fucked upness that is akechi goro's psyche but my brain says 'nay i must go in there _elbow deep_ ' 
> 
> ie 3rd-sem akechi has gotten scarily good at having very self-contained mental breakdowns and i wonder how long it'll take before anyone starts twigging they're happening
> 
> (also im sorry if like, the plot is being veeeeery slow but it will pick up speed after kamoshida arc, hopefully. im chomping at the bit to get to sumire though hghrgffffff the royal trio i l o v e)


	13. Kamoshida Arc: XII

**12 April 2016.**

Kamoshida’s Palace was no less revolting than the last time Mordred was here, and there was a strange, tense vibe permeating it through it. The Palace was on high alert, and he knew it had nothing to do with Joker blundering in recently. The Phantom Thieves were making a halfway decent attempt at being sneaky; they ambushed most of their enemies, and with each battle Joker walked away more and more confident, an echo of a familiar swagger Mordred had come to resent and admire.

During their slow, careful path through the castle, Mordred ensured to keep well back and mostly out of sight. Morgana had joined them, and he didn’t want to risk being caught so early in the game (Morgana might still be a _little_ sour about the whole ‘not letting him out of the cage’ incident). It was, honestly, incredibly boring.

 _where are they going?_ He wondered not for the first time, carefully navigating his way down the wide stone steps that the soon-to-be Phantom Thieves took downwards, _do they even know?_

He quickly understood when they found Kamoshida’s torture dungeon. 

It was cute, how stunned and disgusted the others were. Cognitive versions of students were whipped, demeaned, tormented and crushed, and they acted like it was the most terrible thing they had ever witnessed. Sakamoto was practically vibrating out of his skin with righteous anger, while Joker was looking down at the screaming, wailing cognitions with an intense focus, his mouth pressed into a grim, flat line. 

Mordred found himself drinking that look in. He remembered that look. 

The Phantom Thieves quickly wrapped up their… whatever task they were doing, and Mordred ducked into a dark alcove as they raced past, clearly eager to leave this place behind. Mordred didn’t follow, simply slipped back out and looked down through the bars at where the cognitions were being ruthlessly tortured with an impassive stare. 

They were shells - empty puppets dancing to the strings of Kamoshida’s distorted fantasies. Mordred felt nothing as he looked down at them - students the same age as him, their faces twisted in pain as they clutched at the volleyball net with white-knuckles, staying obediently in place as the Shadows flayed their backs open. They were not chained down or restrained, they just stayed. They stayed and let themselves be hurt, screaming but unheard, and the cycle spun round again and again and again and again and again, each blow cutting a little deeper, each bite of pain becoming a little duller, each cry for help growing a little quieter, until it was silent entirely. 

Still, this was fairly tame compared to other Palaces. Mordred had peered into the ugliest and most monstrous of hearts, and watching some random students get whipped was so low on his shock-o-metre he could only muster a sort of half-hearted ‘oh my’. 

That isn’t to say he would have been content to leave matters be. Kamoshida was _definitely_ the sort Mordred would have happily destroyed if he tripped over his Palace in his spare time. There was catharsis in causing deaths in abhorrent people outside of what Shido ordered, and Loki ensured his punishments were concealed under the guise of an _unfortunate accident_. So many people died in traffic accidents. Shido had no idea how many Akechi had really killed. 

Alas, Kamoshida will live - in a fashion. The Phantom Thieves will destroy him in a different way; they’ll obliterate his true self, saddle him with an alien, all-encompassing guilt and leave him to suffer for the rest of his life. The idea of it still made Mordred’s skin crawl, imagining someone rummaging about in his heart and carving off the parts they disliked. They hated this part of you? It’s gone, and now you’re a stranger in your own skin, your mind no longer yours, compelled to grovel and cry over your crimes. There’s no slow realisation about their own monstrosity, no genuine urge to atone, nothing. Just, _snip,_ let’s cut this ugly piece out, ah, oh no, now everything has crumbled inwards and shattered.

Mordred shuddered and retraced his steps after Joker. 

He’d prefer a clean death, over something like _that._

* * *

Sakamoto’s awakening had Mordred on agonising tenterhooks. 

Captain Kidd had the elemental advantage, but the three of them were still bumbling amateurs who were dangerously close to getting their asses kicked. Mordred watched from the doorway, unnoticed by Kamoshida’s Shadow and his retinue as they too were transfixed on the Phantom Thieves dogpiling the Eligor and narrowly avoiding death with each swing of its spear. 

_don’t do that- move- no to the left! argh! what are you doing joker?!_ Mordred clenched his jaw to keep it shut as he painfully spectated the disaster unfolding in front of him, _sakamoto, back him up- no, don’t_ shoot _at the shadow it resists bullets! use your fucking magic!!_

Mordred felt his heart quadruple in speed when the Eligor finally clocked Joker in the gut with the pole of his spear, sending him sprawling on his ass. Every muscle in his body locked up, pinning him in place as his brain kicked into high speed of weighing the pros and cons of _what if i save him and shit no i can’t do that yet but joker is about to be disemboweled even though it would serve him right but i need him alive but-_

“CAPTAIN KIDD!”

Sakamoto, blessed Sakamoto, knocked the Eligor off balance with a well-aimed _Zio_ before it could follow through with skewering Joker. Its mount screamed and reared, and the Eligor’s attention swung round to Sakamoto and Morgana as Joker leapt back to his feet like he hadn’t just been in a messy sprawl at all. The dark wings of Arsène bloomed in a burst of fire, and Mordred’s heart rate dropped down to maybe twice its resting pace as they regained their footing in battle. The Eligor was losing. 

No, the Eligor _lost._

But Kamoshida’s Shadow simply waved it off. Of course it would. They were in the heart of its domain and these three persona-users weren’t a genuine threat to it. The Shadow knew it, Mordred knew it, and maybe the Phantom Thieves knew it, so it was no surprise at all when more Shadows crawled out from the muck of this distorted world, crowding the three with murderous intent, that Morgana yelled at them to run. 

Which they did. 

Or- they attempted to anyway. 

More Shadows lunged out at them, barring their escape route. Trapped on all sides, Kamoshida’s Shadow cackling with glee, and Mordred- faltered because, obviously, this must have happened last time, right? But they barely scraped through their battle with the Eligor, and there were now _three_ Eligors, and several Bicorns, looming over the Phantom Thieves and oh god they’re going to die. 

_what changed?_ Mordred thought wildly, _i made sure not to rile up the palace when i was in here last time. the shadows should still be weak and complacent!_

Except-

_Akechi._

He confirmed Kamoshida’s Palace for himself, which meant he _went in here._ Akechi was not gentle or subtle in his infiltrations. He tore through them, kicked down doors, smashed down walls, terrorised the Palace’s Shadow to make it quail and quake as its safe space was thoroughly ravaged. Shadows were easier to squeeze blackmail out of, when they were quivering, blubbering wrecks, after all. It _did_ make it harder to come back a second, third, fourth time, the Palace Shadows responding to the heightened threat, but Akechi just ensured to be crueller, harsher, _meaner_ every time he came. Had to keep that air of terror about them. Had to make sure they knew who the _real_ Palace ruler was. 

Shit. Shit, shit, _shit._

“ _Shit,_ ” he hissed, darting out from the doorway just as the Shadows closed in. 

* * *

“Dude, I hope you have some trick to get us out of this!” Ryuji barked, already lifting his hand to his mask. 

“I-I’m thinking!” Morgana yowled, his bristling fur betraying his bravado as his large eyes sought an escape route through the wall of Shadows encroaching on them. 

Akira stayed quiet, his pulse thrumming hard in his ears as he pressed his back hard against Ryuji’s. Two Eligors blocked the exit, one Eligor was advancing on them from the rear, flanked by a group of Bicorns who snorted and tossed their heads aggressively. Exhaustion was already making his limbs shake, coupled with the hot-thump of adrenaline and fear - they didn’t have to fight, he told himself, clenching his hand tight over the hilt of his knife, they just had to break through. Break through and run. 

“Ryuji, Morgana,” Akira rasped, sweat tickling the underside of his sweat, “Focus on the Bicorns to my left. We’ll break through and find a different escape route.”

The two gave their shaky confirmations, and Akira lifted his hand to his mask, burying his nerves. They can do it. They just had to-

“ _GgggrrroooOOOAAAWRRR!”_

Akira only had a split second to register the dark shape bursting into existence behind the Eligor. Huge, hulking, the rattling of chains setting Akira’s teeth on edge. Some primal part of his brain started squeaking, and he stared, wide-eyed as the monster tore the Eligor right off of its horse and flung it across the hall like it was nothing more than a ragdoll. The other Shadows instantly went into a disorganised panic, Kamoshida’s Shadow shrieking.

“Holy _shit-!_ ” Ryuji yelped, but Akira didn’t hesitate. 

“RUN!” he roared, and they bolted in the break of fleeing Bicorns. Akira felt a surge of air ghost his cheek as the monster bodychecked a Bicorn that almost trampled him, _mere inches away,_ and he caught a brief, close-up glimpse of the monster as he ducked past it. 

Shaped like a human, but too huge and alien looking. A white mask like a gaping skull with an empty void underneath, a cape of coffins bound by chains rattling at its back. Its empty face looked at Akira for a long moment before it turned away, ignoring him. 

They didn’t stop running until the monster’s howls died away, until they scrambled through the window and stopped well outside the castle, panting and gasping for air. 

“What- what the hell was that?!” Ryuji whispered, like he expected the monster to come back if he spoke above a shrill gasp, “What the _hell_?”

“I don’t- I don’t know what that was,” Morgana admitted, but gave himself a quick shake, his haughty confidence settling over him like a shield, “But whatever it was, it seemed more focused on other Shadows than us.” 

“It ignored me,” Akira admitted, finally finding enough air to breathe, “It looked at me, but it ignored me.”

A strange silence settled over all three of them. Morgana looked back at the castle uneasily. No more howls came from it, but there weren’t any shouts or alarms either. Akira wondered if the monster attacked Kamoshida’s Shadow, and that’s why they were left alone. 

“Its mask…” Morgana muttered, “It looked… nevermind.”

Ryuji sighed, scrubbing at his hair, “Ugh, well whatever that thing was, I don’t think it matters now. I’m more interested in important stuff like: when did I get changed into _this_?!”

He gestured at himself dramatically, and maybe it was because of the adrenaline still making Akira’s pulse pound, but he found himself grinning a little, a quiet, barely there laugh in his throat. 

“It looks good on you,” he said honestly. 

“Uh,” Ryuji lowered his arms, frowning, “Should I be happy about that?”

“Are you seriously more focused on your clothes than what just happened?” Morgana snapped, “What if that thing’s still in there when we go back in!”

“Uh, what? _When_ we go back in?” Ryuji stared at him like he was insane, “Why the hell would we go back in? We’ve got what we needed to take Kamoshida down.” 

A pause. 

“ _Shit,_ Kamoshida!” Ryuji yelped, “We got away here, but we’re still screwed with Kamoshida back in the real school…” 

“Would he even remember?” Akira asked, “He didn’t remember the execution stuff.”

“That’s quite sharp of you, Akira,” Morgana said approvingly, “The Kamoshida in reality can’t possibly know about what happens here. A Shadow is the true self that is suppressed - a side of one’s personality they don’t want to see. There’s no conscious interaction between them.” 

“So… we’re okay,” Ryuji concluded, his shoulders slumping, “Cool, cool. Now that we know that, all we gotta do is-”

“Wait. I guided you as promised,” Morgana interrupted, “Now it’s your turn to cooperate with me.” 

Huh?

“Cooperate with you?” Akira repeated a little dumbly, to which Morgana gave him a somewhat withering look. 

“Why did you think I was super nice about teaching you idiots everything?” Morgana sighed, “I’m here to investigate something- a way to erase the distortion from my body and return to my real form! That’s why we must delve deep into Mementos and-”

“Whoa, hold up,” Ryuji held up a hand, “The hell’re you going on and on about? We never promised anything like that.”

Morgana gaped up at them with an expression of acute betrayal, “Huh? But- but I helped you! You aren’t going to repay the hospitality I showed you?!” 

Akira flinched when the cat swung to him, “Especially you! You’re going to up and leave, even though you’re already part of my master plan?” 

Something in Akira bristled at that - since when did he agree to be a part of anyone’s ‘master plan’? It would’ve been one thing if Morgana told them from the outset that he was helping them in return for their assistance, that was an honest ulterior motive he could get behind, but getting guilt-tripped into helping?

“I don’t remember being part of a plan,” he said dryly, “Do you remember, Ryuji?”

“Nope,” Ryuji said cheerfully, catching on, “Sounds like somethin’ we should’ve been told about, huh?”

Morgana made a noise like an over boiling tea kettle, his fur bristling. 

“Is it because I’m not human? Because I’m more like a cat? Is that why you’re making a fool out of me?!” 

“We’re busy!” Ryuji sighed, “I mean, not that we’re ungrateful or anything but… look, thanks for everything, cat. You’ve got guts, for bein’ a cat and all, but we’ve gotta go. We’ve got a pervy teacher to take down!” 

Morgana spluttered, speechless with anger, and Akira and Ryuji took that as their cue to leave. He hid a grin into the collar of his coat as Morgana overcame his shock and yelled at the retreating backs, stifling the little spark of guilt at that. Look, he wouldn’t mind helping him out, but Ryuji was right: Kamoshida came first. Once they dealt with him, then Akira will come back and see about this ‘master plan’ of his. 

He cast one last look over his shoulder at the castle. 

He wondered if the monster would still be there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> not shown in the chapter: mordred almost getting trampled to death bc he's too focused on clearing akira's escape route than noticing that he is a smol cat amongst a panicking group of horses and mounted shadows


	14. Kamoshida Arc: XIII

**12 April 2016**

Akira felt like he could doze off while walking as he and Ryuji left the ramen bar. While the hot meal amplified his exhaustion from romping about Kamoshida’s castle and almost _dying_ a few times, Ryuji caught his second wind from his bottomless well of stamina, gesturing as he said loudly; “So, about our plan to take down Kamoshida-!”

“Lower your voice,” Akira groaned, pinching his forelock and fidgeting with it, “The whole street’s going to hear.”

“Oh,” Ryuji winced, “Uh, sorry-”

“Kurusu-kun?” 

Akira snapped to attention, earlier drowsiness evaporating in an instant at the familiar voice. He dropped his hand and crammed it back into his pocket, pivoting as Akechi walked up to him with a tentative smile. He looked exhausted, a sharp change from yesterday where he was considerably more bushy-tailed and bright-eyed. 

“Oh, hey, I didn’t expect to see you so soon,” Akira said in genuine surprise. The chances of bumping into the same person completely by chance two days in a row was amazing luck, considering the size of Tokyo. _Especially_ considering how extreme his luck had been recently, where it was stuck in an ouroboros of so bad it was good but it turned bad again. 

_must be fate,_ the stupid part of Akira said, thankfully not verbally. 

“Yes, it is a surprise,” Akechi’s smile became a little more certain, as if Akira’s friendly reciprocation was all he needed, “It must be fate.”

 _oh, he said it,_ Akira thought bewilderingly, catching Ryuji’s side-glance of; ‘ _is this for real?’_

 _‘yes, ryuji, this is for real. now be my wingman,’_ Akira’s answering look said.

 _‘uh,’_ Ryuji’s stare said. 

“Uh,” Ryuji said aloud, cutting into the conversation with the delicacy of an iron pipe to a soda can, “You two know each other?”

“Not very well,” Akechi admitted, tucking a lock of hair behind his ear as his gaze dropped for a fraction. Akira thought it was unfair that his eyelashes were so pretty, “We met only briefly yesterday.”

“Oh, right. Did you find your cat?” Akira recalled abruptly. With all the madness of Kamoshida’s castle, the whole ‘cute boy’s missing cat’ thing had been shoved quite far onto the backburner. He didn’t even check the school today for it.

Akechi sighed, his shoulders slumping, “Not yet. I thought I should check this area again after what you said yesterday, but it seems he has moved on.”

“You’ve lost your cat?” Ryuji scratched the back of his head, giving him a squinty side-look Akira couldn’t quite parse. He wondered if the blond was thinking about Morgana, “Shit, man, that’s tough.”

“Ah, haha, it’s alright,” Akechi said in a tone that meant it clearly _wasn’t_ but he was determined to keep up appearances otherwise. His bright smile didn’t quite reach his tired eyes when his attention shifted to Ryuji, “I apologise. I haven’t introduced myself to you properly, that was rude of me. I’m Akechi Goro.” 

“Nah, don’t worry ‘bout it,” Ryuji waved a hand casually, “I’m Sakamoto Ryuji.”

Akechi nodded, his gaze flickering between them both for a quick moment, “Well then, Sakamoto-kun, Kurusu-kun… it was a pleasure to meet you.” 

The other boy gave them a quick, polite nod and walked away - towards Shujin Academy. Akira felt a little bad for him, not bothered about the rapid goodbye. That cat must mean a lot to him. 

“‘Missing cat’, huh?” Ryuji said after a pause, “D’ya think…”

“No, it’s not Morgana,” Akira said, “I think I’ve seen it, it’s a different one.”

“Oh, phew,” Ryuji shook his head, and they started off towards the station again, “I mean, if it _was_ Morgana, it would’ve been weird and _way_ too coincidental. Anyways-”

Akira grunted when Ryuji elbows him playfully in the ribs, a big shit-eating grin on his face. 

“‘It must be fate’?” Ryuji drawled, poorly mimicking Akechi’s voice, “You sure his missing cat wasn’t a pick up line?”

Akira snorted, putting a bit of space between them as he rubbed his side, “No, he seemed pretty genuine about it. Though, uh,” he fidgeted with his fringe, “I did get his number yesterday.” 

Ryuji let out a low whistle, “ _Fast,_ Akira.”

Akira hid a smile as he ducked his head, his cheeks feeling warm. It was strange, even though they had just met, he felt so at ease and comfortable with Ryuji. He didn’t know if it was just his new friend’s upfront demeanor or sincerity, but a tension he hadn’t known he’d held melted away at Ryuji’s easy acceptance at his not-quite-subtle orientation. He guessed sharing near-death experiences with each other in quick succession forged a bond pretty quick.

“S’weird though. Akechi Goro, feel like I heard that somewhere before,” Ryuji tapped his chin before waving it off, “Eh, don’t matter, I guess.”

“Maybe just one of those names,” Akira said impishly, deciding not to enlighten his friend. It’ll be funnier once he finds out they just bumped into a minor celebrity. Though, Akechi seemed more like the type Ryuji would be irritated by, than awed. 

“Yeah, probs.” 

The rest of their walk was mostly quiet, the pair of them fighting off yawns. They never discussed their plan to ‘take down Kamoshida’. It was definitely a tomorrow problem. 

* * *

“Plan to take down Kamoshida…” Akechi repeated under his breath as he approached Shujin Academy’s gates. This late into the day most of the students departed, with only a few stragglers who had stayed behind to study in the library loitering. Akechi ensured to stay out of sight. It’d be a pain if any of his fans were amongst those stragglers. 

Mordred’s absence was a bit of a concern, but Akechi had a feeling he knew where he was. Those two possible persona-users had looked tired, that unnatural bone-deep fatigue that had a person slouching and droopy-eyed. He was willing to bet they had gone straight into Kamoshida’s Palace after school, and Mordred had the inevitable task of babysitting them. The question of why he hadn’t returned yet was what Akechi wanted answering. 

_we need a way to communicate,_ he thought irritably as he transitioned into the Metaverse. 

Kamoshida’s Palace was on high alert. Akechi could _feel_ the hostility emanating from the very walls of the castle, the windows gleaming a bright, unfriendly crimson. Kurusu and Sakamoto? Or was it Mordred who had kicked the hornet’s nest? 

Akechi took a few steps forwards, clearing the drawbridge - only to quickly dart into a shadowed corner when he spotted something near the front door. It was… a cat? Mordred? No, something that looked like a cat, standing on its hindlegs with a huge head like a mascot. It was angrily pacing back and forth, grumbling and muttering under its breath; snatches of _“ungrateful jerks”_ and _“but I need them”_ reached his ears, quickly building a picture. 

A cat… those two persona-users had guidance, then?

It wasn’t Mordred, though, and Akechi was leery of exposing himself to this unknown creature without knowing more about it. He silently skulked away to take a more roundabout route. 

_though what does this mean?_ Akechi mused to himself as he scaled one of the outer walls, deftly finding handholds and footholds by gouging out the solid stone with his claws, _mordred’s form hadn’t changed to whatever that thing was. perhaps they’re unrelated._

Maybe. He wasn’t sure. 

Filing that away under the folder of _‘Questions To Ask Mordred When He’s Off-Guard’_ , Akechi reached a window. It was locked, obviously, but he just punched his way through. Glass shattered loudly, he hauled himself in, and a group of Shadows ambushed him within _seconds._

They lasted for only a few seconds too. Haha, nothing put him in a better mood than crushing enemies.

“Pathetic,” he sighed, leaning all of his weight down on the Angel underneath him. His boot was crushed hard against its throat, stemming its irritating whines and pleas for its life, “Tell me, have you seen a cat around here?”

 **_“Ah- ah,”_ ** the Shadow’s wings fluttered, and with a roll of his eyes, Akechi eased the weight off its throat. It didn’t _actually_ need its throat to talk, let alone oxygen to breathe, but cognition was a bitch, huh? The Shadow thought it needed those things, and so it did, even though it didn’t. 

**_“Two- two cats,”_ ** The Angel rasped, **_“One with- two other intruders. They_ ** **insulted** **_King Kamoshida, were to be- be punished, but then, the other one-”_ **

“Ah, I understand,” Akechi straightened up with a quiet laugh, “How interesting.”

Mordred saved them. Now, it could be for practical reasons: Akechi expressed interest in assimilating them into his own plans, which cannot be done if they were _dead,_ but Akechi also didn’t have a need for weaklings that required constant babysitting to survive a Palace this shallow. Mordred was either being pragmatic, or there was another reason for his behaviour. After all, wasn’t he watching them without telling Akechi? He had an invested interest in them for his own ulterior motives, that much was plain. 

_another mystery to pry from him,_ Akechi thought idly. 

“Where is the other cat?” he asked the Angel. It whined pathetically, something about not knowing, so he leaned all his weight downwards again with a heavy, put-upon sigh. 

**_“L-Laaa- ast s-seen- f-first floor!”_ ** the Angel choked out, and with a pleasant ‘ah, thank you’, Akechi put the Shadow out of its misery. 

“I am sorely tempted to wring Mordred’s neck for this,” Akechi muttered to himself, putting his hands on his hips and pulling up the rough mental map he made of this place yesterday.

( _“So, about our plan to take down Kamoshida-”_ )

What plan did they have? Akechi was mildly curious to see the fallout of a Mental Shutdown in the middle of Shujin Academy - it would be an outlier in the cases the police had accumulated thus far, skewing what tentative hypotheses Sae-san had concocted. It might be a good thing, actually, would make things more difficult and chaotic to see the pattern. 

Well, they’ll see. Akechi was content to let the persona-users handle this Palace all by their lonesome. Let them dirty their hands and make their mistakes, before he swooped in to make everything better. 

* * *

“There you are.”

Mordred jerked out of his groggy doze at the displeased tone, lifting his head to see Akechi looming over the chair he had claimed in the Safe Room in all his scowling, Black Mask glory. 

“Ugh,” Mordred said. 

“Wasn’t there an _errand_ you were supposed to do today?” Akechi asked with poisonous sweetness. 

“Don’t start,” Mordred groaned, stiffly stretching his aching limbs out. His SP was exhausted, and his body hurt… it turned out getting trampled by a herd of panicking Bicorns was _not_ a good time, sturdy persona-user or not, “I almost died saving those shitheads from getting ripped apart.” 

“Your sacrifice is appreciated,” Akechi said, his tone still sweet. It was jarring coming out of that stupid helmet, “Not. But it’s fine. I managed to salvage the situation.”

“Uh huh,” Mordred sat up and scratched behind his ear with his hindleg, “Did you decide to ambush him?”

“We met by pure luck, actually,” Akechi sighed and leaned back a fraction, “Sakamoto-san… he is a loudmouth.”

Mordred’s hindleg slowed its vigorous scratching at that, “...yes, he is.” 

“That will have to be amended,” Akechi said, “In any case, I think it is time we went home. Can you walk?”

Mordred scoffed, wriggling his rump as he eyed up the distance between him and the floor, “Of _course_ I can.”

So, obviously, when he hopped off the chair, his weak, exhausted legs crumpled under him and sent him tumbling head over heels onto Akechi’s stupid clawed boots. He yelped, then yelped _again_ when Akechi callously nudged him off his feet and onto the floor properly. 

“Hmm,” Akechi looked down at him, “Of course you can.”

“ _Shut up._ ”

“Do you need help, Mordred?”

“ _Fuck off._ ”

“It is perfectly normal for partners to help each other,” Akechi continued, his tone mockingly cruel, “Especially if one is struggling more than the other.”

Mordred latched onto his ankle and bit him. 

“Ow,” Akechi bent down and scruffed him, hauling Mordred up off the floor like he was a bag of potatoes rather than a living, breathing, _hissing_ cat, “None of that, or I will feed you to the first Shadow I see.”

“Piece of shit,” Mordred growled back, but he stopped resisting. There was a malicious glitter to Akechi’s eyes that he didn’t want to test.

Akechi waited for a long, tense minute, staring at Mordred dangling helplessly from his hand, before he adjusted him into a far more comfortable hold against his chest with one arm. Mordred, with supreme difficulty, swallowed his pride and didn’t sink his claws through Akechi’s dark bodysuit with the intent to maim. 

“You are lucky I am in a good mood, Mordred,” Akechi hummed.

As Akechi carried him through the Palace and back into the real world, Mordred wasn’t sure what it meant, being so uneasy and intimidated in his _other self’s_ presence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i wanna say, tho akira is being a thirsty thirsty boi, it is slow burn between him and akechi
> 
> thank y'all for reading and commenting and kudosing ;w; also, as some ppl have asked what acatchi actually looks like, he looks like this: [link!](https://webmediums.com/media/max_1200/1*wTVdKFm8YXeQjHL5Hc21BQ.jpeg) and [link!](https://66.media.tumblr.com/396b4ad3e510b8757ffa709266f1bfb4/tumblr_pqleq1Zx7s1wayehm_540.jpg)


	15. Interlude I: (Promise)

**2/2**

“You shouldn’t have coffee this late.”

“It’s fine,” Akira said quietly. His voice was hoarse and scratchy, eyes red-rimmed beneath his glasses. His gaze was fixed on the cup between his hands, “I think I’m immune to caffeine now, anyways.”

Akechi said nothing. 

It was almost midnight and it was also the second of February.

Maruki had given his ultimatum, and Akira had given his answer to Akechi. He should have left soon after that, honestly, but Akira had asked and Akechi had… stayed, despite himself. _‘_ _ Don’t get too close,’ _ he had said when they struck their deal, but Akira always had to fucking upend his plans in the most inconvenient ways, didn’t he? 

“I’m not… worried,” Akira finally said after a too-long pause, “I just.”

He looked up at him, his mouth twisted into a wry, barely there smile, “I feel bad.”

“Why?”

“Because… I want to be selfish,” Akira admitted, “Even though it’ll make us miserable.”

“...”

“ _Fuck_ ,” Akira tugged his glasses off, tossing them irritably on the table. They clattered loudly, skidding to a halt next to Akechi’s elbow, “I  know, I’ll stop. I won’t fold. I promised-”

“Akira.”

“-just, I just wish, we had more time.”

“But we don’t.”

“No,” Akira blew out a shaky breath. Akechi hoped he wouldn’t cry again, “No, we don’t. So…”

Akira reached out slightly, his elbow resting on the table, his pinky extended as he gave him a very brittle, fragile smile. Akechi wasn’t sure what it was; his pallor, the utter misery in his eyes, or something else, but he found his barbed tongue failing him when he tried to reject the unspoken question. 

“...Akira,” he said instead, quietly, strained. 

“Just let me be selfish in this,” Akira said, “Promise that if-  when we get back to our reality, we’ll make the most of our time.”

Akechi should say no. He should reject it and say _‘I can’t promise that’_ , because he  _ can’t _ . He  _can’t_.  He  _can’t_.  There were too many obstacles, too many shitty things weighing him down: if he didn’t instantly keel over the second they returned to their reality, then the fact he was a fucking  murderer  who would be chased to the ends of the earth by different factions should be a big fucking dealbreaker. There was no  time possible between them. There was none and Akira should just-

“You’ll be happier without me,” Akechi tried. 

“No, I won’t,” Akira said, with firm conviction. 

“We won’t have a normal life.”

“Like I care.”

“I’ll likely go to jail.”

“Then I’ll visit you.”

“I hate you,” Akechi threw out, sharp and heated, his last desperate attempt, “I  _ hate _ you, you fucking idiot!”

“No,” Akira said very, very softly, “You don’t.”

“I hate you,” Akechi repeated, but he barely heard himself. His throat felt tight and he hated  _ himself _ more. 

Akira reached out further. He grabbed Akechi’s hand, linking their pinkies together. Akechi didn’t resist him. 

“Let’s promise this then,” Akira smiled at him, bright and hopeful and so very very sad, “One date, a real one without all the stupid subtext. A real, proper date, and that’s- that’s it. Whatever happens after that… happens. I won’t… make you do anything. Just- one date. My one selfish thing, okay?”

Akechi breathed for a very long moment. Akira was looking right at him, with eyes that were red from crying and a smile that looked like it was going to crumple at any moment. He knew the impossibility of what he was asking; he knew it was a promise that was going to be broken the moment Akechi made it. He knew, they both knew, but he needed it.

“...just one,” Akechi whispered. 

“Yeah,” Akira let go of his hand, “Something to look forward to when we get back to our reality, y’know? We need- we need… something to look forward to.”

Akechi said nothing. 

**“** Everything will be fine,” Akira said, mostly to himself, “You’ll see.”

And he sipped his coffee, though it failed to hide the small quiver to his lips. 

Akechi looked away and pretended not to see. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> these interludes will come up very occasionally, mostly to shed more light on stuff that happened between acatchi and _his_ Akira, tho they will become significant later...


	16. Kamoshida Arc: XIV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW for Shido being a piece of shit

**13 April 2016**

It was getting easier to be Mordred.

 _'Akechi Goro'_ still clung to him like a barbed fish hook under the skin, of course. Removing it was about as frustrating as peeling off an old sticker where the adhesive had fused to the surface, leaving sticky remnants behind that needed picking off with a fingernail. The craving for praise - _scrape that off_ \- the knee-jerk reaction to deflect and deflect - _rip that off too_ \- and the crushing pain in his chest that was too intense to be called heartburn every time he thought about Akira - _gouge that right out with a_ **_knife_ **\- all stubbornly clinging.

It was shitty, so, so shitty. Akechi was no stranger to mutilating his own personality and psyche for convenience (there was a reason his fucked up little mind spat out Loki, after all), but this was more than surgically removing _this_ unwanted trait and cramming it under the metaphorical bed. This was a complete overhaul. A psyche-lobotomy, really. Akechi’s own shoddy change of heart that didn’t really change anything at all, just rearranged things to be sort of less terrible.

Mordred. Not Akechi. His mental fingers were fumbling with the transition. 

_“-cellent work this time, Akechi, really good work. Have you seen the video yet?”_

“I have, sir,” Akechi said. He was trying to sound professional and composed, but Mordred could hear _(feel)_ the brimming pride at the cloying praise Shido was piling on him, the little boy hungering for acknowledgement gobbling up the crumbs like it was a feast. Excellent. Fantastic. Oh, no one else could have done a better job, Akechi. You’re such a good boy, aren’t you, who’s a good boy? You’re a good boy! You fucked up, mass-murdering lapdog, you! 

Mordred felt mildly ill listening to this all over again. 

Except he shouldn’t be listening to this all over again. His other self was sat perched on the edge of his sofa, prim and proper like Shido was actually in the room, despite being in his stupid Featherman pyjamas at threein the morning. Shido liked having these talks pre-dawn, because Akechi’s guard was that little bit lowered, wits blunted by exhaustion of an all-nighter or the fuzziness of ‘just woken up’. He used to think it was a sign of maturity _(“Oh, working all hours of the day, like a proper adult! Ahaha~”)_ , or that Shido thought him _reliable,_ but now he saw for what it was.

Fuck, a new perspective was _awful._ He hated it.

_“Of course you have. It’s all over the news even a few days later. Hah, and you wanted to do a ‘quieter time’. I told you, didn’t I? No one gives a shit unless the collateral is big enough.”_

“Yes, sir.”

 _“And here I am, proven right._ Again. _Haven’t you learned not to question my orders about this shit? ‘Quieter time’. Feh, it wouldn’t have made the news at all. How would that help me at all, Akechi?”_

“It wouldn’t, sir…?”

Brief confusion, Akechi’s budding pride quickly smothering into wariness. Shido was good at this, push, pull, push, pull, build Akechi up then rip the rug out from under him, so he didn’t get too comfortable. Mordred had adapted to the uncertainty of it by aggressively ensuring his worth, to making those threats remain playful threats that Shido wouldn’t _really_ carry out. Stupid, unhealthy coping mechanism, in retrospect, since it devolved into mass-murder.

Mordred carefully rounded the sofa he had been unsubtly eavesdropping behind, jumping onto the seat next to his other self. Akechi’s eyes automatically flickered to him, but his focus was elsewhere, his prim and proper posture stiffening into something anxiously tense. 

_“No, it wouldn’t. And it made me think, Akechi. Do you know what it made me think?”_

Trick question with no right answer. Akechi was very still now, the gears in his brain spinning into high gear to try and preempt what angle Shido was aiming for now. What hints did he have for his worthless father’s mood? Fact one: he was three days late for congratulating him on his task in causing that train crash, fact two: he was unhappy, fact three: it must be Akechi’s fault.

Mordred knew the honest answer: Shido was just being a dick. Akechi had done a good job, but Shido never liked him getting too comfortable and confident in his powers. If he did, why, he might get _ideas,_ he might get _opinions,_ and the last thing Shido needed was his supernatural assassin pet biting his hand if he let the leash grow the slightest bit slack. No, no, no, firm, sharp, severe.

In a fucked up way, Mordred understood. He might’ve even done the same in his shoes.

 _it’s still wrong and cruel,_ a voice that sounded like Akira piped up in his head. 

_shut up,_ he snapped back. 

“...what does it make you think, sir?”

_“You’re starting to get a little soft. Or is it complacent? You still haven’t completed your current list.”_

Of targets, Mordred mentally finished. Right, yes, this was when… oh, he remembered this. 

“I apologise, sir,” Akechi’s tone shifted, brightened, like a magical switch was flipped in his brain and Detective Prince Akechi lurched out in dazzling defence. He even smiled, like there was a fucking audience to awe and impress, his gaze fixed somewhere unseeing into the middle distance. 

“It’s simply, between my various duties, school work and ensuring your… success, my time is becoming increasingly restricted,” Akechi explained reasonably. His knuckles were white where he was holding his phone, “Mementos is becoming increasingly dangerous the deeper I go as well-”

 _“Akechi, Akechi, Akechi…”_ Shido sighed, _“I’m not asking for_ excuses. _”_

Akechi went silent, in the same way a mouse would skitter to a halt when it saw a cat. 

_“It seems we need to have another discussion about your time management skills,”_ Shido said, _“Tonight, 11PM.”_

“Yes- yes, sir,” Akechi said, very very very quietly. 

Shido hung up. 

Yes, Mordred remembered this. 

Akechi set his phone down in his lap and rubbed his thumb along the edge of its casing. He started biting the nails of his other hand, breaking the skin on his middle finger. Nothing was said for a long moment, and knowing that his other self would just sit here and stew in his thoughts until it was time to leave for school (hah), biting his nails down to the quick, Mordred took matters into his own hands. 

He headbutted Akechi’s arm, then did it again when he only twitched, until his other self looked over at him with a vague expression of dazed irritation. 

“Go back to bed or I’ll piss on your lap,” Mordred threatened. 

“I’d break your fucking neck,” Akechi said, tone sharp and nasty, but it was water off a duck’s back. Lashing out because you're stressed, yeah, so cool, Akechi. Mordred was _soooo_ intimidated. He hoped it made you feel better _(it never did_ ).

“Like those scrawny hands could do that,” Mordred sneered, and quickly jumped off the sofa to avoid the half-hearted swipe, “Go to fucking sleep.”

Akechi looked like he was going to argue, or maybe kick him, but exhaustion won out. With a sigh he got up and went back to bed. 

Mordred stayed where he was, mulling over the phone call. It was weird. Shido was a piece of shit monster who he would _gladly_ strangle with his own bare hands given the chance, but hearing his slimeball voice hadn’t ignited that awful, dizzy rage and longing that made him want to punch shit until his fingers broke. He just felt.

Tired. Sick of his shit. 

_I want nothing more to do with him,_ he realised with a lurch, unsure why this distressed him so much, _just, stick him in a rocket and aim it for Mars. Let him drop dead from a heart attack. A stroke. A random car accident. Just… go away._

What was that phrase…? The true opposite of love isn’t hate, it’s apathy, and it seemed Mordred had finally hit that sweet spot. 

* * *

A few hours later, they both pretended Shido’s phone call never happened. 

Akechi was bright-eyed and bushy tailed, ready for school (first time this week, and it was solely to pick up and hand in homework). He even remembered to make _himself_ breakfast (though only after Mordred latched onto his shin and yelled at him about it). He also made Mordred breakfast (cat food again). The weather was nice, the day promised to be good, and the pair of them were absolutely not thinking about Shido’s appointment that evening.

Akechi, because he learned it was better not to dwell, and Mordred, because he knew what was going to happen. 

_maybe,_ Mordred mused into his food bowl, _i should trip akechi down a flight of stairs. he can’t do anything on two broken legs._

Then Shido might send the cleaner to smother the now useless Akechi in his sleep, so that was a wash. 

_maybe trip shido then,_ he amended half-seriously. 

Akechi interrupted his mundane murder schemes; “Have you any plans today, Mordred?”

“I was thinking of returning to Shujin to continue observing our new persona-users,” Mordred replied without missing a beat, lifting his head and licking his chops clean, “Why? Need me for something else?”

“It would be good to get some, ah, practice in discreetly transporting you,” Akechi said, idly tilting his coffee cup this way and that. Leblanc had ruined Mordred, so he couldn’t help but give the cup of cheap instant coffee a disgusted look, “My school would be a safe test run.”

Mordred thought about it. 

One part of him gnashed its fangs and wanted to go straight into Kamoshida’s Palace, just in case the two chucklefucks went back in _again_ and ended up getting torn apart by a keyed up Palace. Mordred hadn’t just kicked the hornet’s nest yesterday: he set it on fire and pissed on the ashes, and the Shadows were going to be extremely fucked off as a result. The security level of the Palace was going to be through the _roof._

On the other hand, Mordred was emotionally and mentally wrung out. If he had to stalk Akira today, again, and watch him blunder clumsily around the Palace, again, and have a heart attack from him almost dying, _again,_ Mordred might just have one final psychotic snap and do something extremely regrettable. He needed a break. 

_akira will be fine,_ he told himself firmly, _he’s a cockroach. i can leave him unattended for_ **_one_ ** _fucking day._

His nerves felt jittery at the thought, but that just helped solidify his decision. The idea of him getting so obsessive over Akira that he had a compulsive need to stalk him every single day just to assure himself that he was alive made him want to sick up his breakfast. He wasn’t chaining himself to somebody _else._ He didn't fight tooth and nail out of Maruki's Reality to become Akira's pathetic pining shadow. Fuck him. Yeah, fuck him. If he went into the Palace and got the shit kicked out of him, that's his fault. Fucker shouldn't go into the Metaverse multiple days in a row. It'll be a suitable lesson.

So.

“Yeah,” he said, “Whatever. School sounds… fun.” 

He did have a niggling feeling he was getting something important though.

… 

Whatever, probably just his paranoia talking.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ngl the idea of akechi carting about acatchi in school like joker does with morgana tickles me
> 
> whispered arguments over correct answers on test papers, because akechi is affronted at being corrected by a fucking cat, whereas acatchi tries to tell him he already took this paper and KNOWS how he originally got it wrong without letting it slip he's his future time travelling self (his excuse of "i'm just smarter than you" did not convince akechi at all, and thus, history repeated...)
> 
> also i know i keep saying it but aaaaaah thank you so much for the comments and stuff!!! i really appreciate them, even if i dont reply bc im. s h y hf. fdh. gomen, but i super do appreciate them ;w; thank you!!


	17. Kamoshida Arc: XV

**13 April 2016**

It was in the middle of an intensely dull period of Mathematics that Akechi felt his phone vibrate.

He slipped it out of his pocket immediately, keeping his phone angled slightly under his desk as his gaze shifted from his open textbook to its screen. A text notification from- ah, Kurusu? That was an unexpected surprise. He had assumed that the new persona-user would require some… _prodding_ to reach out to him outside of their physical encounters.

“Who is it?” Mordred whispered, his kitten nose sticking out from beneath his desk to snoop. 

Akechi angled the phone to let him read, ignoring the student to his right giving him a suspicious look. Due to his detective duties, the teachers were rather lax when it came to him leaving in the middle of the school day or accepting texts during class (provided he was quiet while doing so). He was scoring exceptionally well in all of his exams, fulfilling the conditions of his scholarship, and his homework was consistently punctual and high quality, allowing him a well-earned leniency his peers envied.

Bringing Mordred to class was, perhaps, overstepping the line a bit, but thus far no one had noticed. Akechi wasn’t sure if he was relieved or disappointed at how easy the entire affair was. It ended up not being a very good litmus test on his smuggling skills.

“Kurusu?” Mordred’s hushed voice drew his attention back, “Why is he texting you?”

Akechi didn’t answer, obviously, refocusing on the message. He was confused about the sudden contact, but he quickly brushed the unnecessary emotion aside. Here was an opportunity to get a head start on building rapport with his future, ah, ‘co-worker’, even if a part of him bristled at being beaten to the punch. Akechi was meant to lure _him_ in with overt friendliness, not the other way round.

Oh well, it is what it is. Akechi wasn’t to be outdone. 

**Kurusu Akira**

_10:03am_

**Akira:** hi, whats up? you up to much rn?

 **Goro:** I am in Mathematics and not learning a single thing. Is there something you need?

 **Akira:** lol 

**Akira:** sorry i forgot it was still classtime for other people

 **Akira:** it’s sports day or smth here

 **Akira:** very boring

Mordred huffed loudly; “He’s bored, so he texts a complete stranger out of nowhere and acts over-familiar?”

Why did he sound so annoyed? It wasn’t as if Kurusu was being over-familiar with _him_.

( _or, maybe, that’s the issue?)_

**Goro:** Are you not a sporty type?

 **Akira:** not really

 **Akira:** im a real lazybones

 **Akira:** you?

 **Goro:** Haha, I am the opposite.

 **Goro:** I wake up early in the morning to work out before school.

 **Goro:** Not because I have a love of exercise.

 **Goro:** Merely that it is a necessary evil to remain fit and healthy.

 **Akira:** ur willpower is stronger than mine then lol

 **Akira:** oh hey btw, did you find your cat?

Akechi glanced down at said cat. 

“I can’t believe the ‘I lost my cat’ ploy worked,” Mordred grumbled irritably, “I didn’t realise he could be so gullible.” 

Akechi filed away the familiarity that comment implied.

_(why are you so interested in kurusu, mordred?_ ) 

**Goro:** I have, actually!

 **Goro:** I found him not long after I left you yesterday, loitering near Shujin.

 **Goro:** He was thankfully unharmed and in good condition.

 **Akira:**!!!

 **Akira:** thats good!

 **Akira:** i was keeping an eye out just in case

 **Goro:** I’m sorry I didn’t inform you earlier, then… 

**Akira:** nah its cool

 **Akira:** i was just worried since you looked kinda stressed about it ystday

 **Akira:** also

 **Akira:** uh

 **Akira:** i know this is out of the blue and like, we’re still strangers but

 **Akira:** you wanna hang out sometime too?

( _and why are you so interested in_ **_me_ ** _, kurusu?)_

**Goro:** I wouldn’t be opposed to it. 

**Goro:** I have a very busy schedule but… 

**Goro:** In the evenings, I should have time for such things. 

**Goro:** If it is not too late for you, of course.

 **Akira:** it should be fine

 **Akira:** not like i’m up to much, being a newbie here

 **Goro:** Yes, you said you transferred?

 **Akira:** from the countryside yeah

 **Akira:** so i dont know a lot of ppl rn except you and someone from shujin

 **Akira:** sorry if it seems like im being all

 **Akira:** inappropriate/overfamiliar

 **Akira:** feel free to tell me to go away or smth if it’s too much

 **Goro:** I would not have given you my number if I did not want you to contact me

 **Goro:** You are not being inappropriate at all, Kurusu-kun. 

**Akira:** cool!

 **Akira:** oh g2g, volleyball time ugh

 **Goro:** good luck!

( _i wonder how they are linked, mordred and kurusu…)_

Mordred huffed as Akechi put his phone away. 

“Well, it seems your plan to draw Kurusu in is working fine without me,” the cat commented with feigned disinterest. Before Akechi could give him more than a curious look, Mordred vanished back into his cramped desk shelf, ending the conversation entirely. 

( _hm_ )

Akechi rested his chin on an upturned palm and looked out of the window. A sport’s day at Shujin Academy… no doubt their Olympian Kamoshida would be the focus of such a day, influencing the cognition of all those attending. Kamoshida’s ego would be stoked, and his authority amongst the student body would be further cemented, instilling deeper feelings of fear and awe. Such incidents had dynamic effects on Palaces, and Akechi knew, from experience, that over the next few days Kamoshida’s Palace would be incredibly dangerous as the Shadow rode the egotistic high.

Perhaps he should take a leaf out of Mordred’s book and observe Kurusu and Sakamoto the next time they entered the Palace? It could be illuminating to see how they would handle such dramatic changes, and whether they were worth the effort.

 _i’ll have to make time for it though,_ he thought irritably, _which may be difficult. shido is already angry at my lack of time management._

Which was _unfair_. Shido kept piling more and more targets on his to-do list, and now his odious inner circle were taking turns to yank on his leash, pointing him at their own hit list for their own ambitions. He couldn’t say _no_ either, as they had Shido’s implicit approval to use him in such a way, so all Akechi could do was hide his frothing rage behind a smile and get the deeds done as quickly as possible. He couldn’t wait until he could slip his leash and tear out all of their throats with his **_teeth._ **

Akechi smiled out of the window as he toyed with that fantasy. Shido with his brains blown out of his skull over his desk, his shitty sycophants cowering at Akechi’s feet when they realised they didn’t control him at all, that they lived only because of his extreme patience. In this fantasy, Akechi was untouchable, powerful, and the indisputable _winner._ Haha...

It was a _fantastic_ fantasy.

But until then...

 _school work, targets, detective work, manipulating mental shutdown cases, shido, palaces and now persona-users,_ Akechi listed off, rearranging his mental calendar to see where he could slip in ‘babysitting my future peons’ without sacrificing too much catnap time, _well, if i successfully recruit kurusu and sakamoto, perhaps they can fulfil some of my metaverse obligations for me._

That’d be nice. It’d really take a load off his mind to have some grunts take care of the menial jobs for once. Shido would think it was all him, though, which would solve that _time management_ problem he was struggling with.

An idea flickered to life, and Akechi withdrew his phone again to send a quick text: 

**Goro:** I may be able to spend some time with you tonight. 

**Goro:** Does that work for you?

Akechi didn’t have to wait long for a reply. 

**Akira:** yeah works for me

 **Akira:** i can meet you at a place called leblanc

 **Akira:** heard of it?

 **Goro:** It sounds familiar but I can’t say why.

 **Akira:** it’s a cafe in yongen-jaya. my uhhh guardian owns it

 **Akira:** that ok?

( _easy, easy, easy_ )

**Goro:** More than okay. 

**Goro:** I’ll see you there, Kurusu-kun.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a bit of a shorty chapter coughs 
> 
> i apologise if kamoshida arc is moving at a crawling pace... mostly this arc is just to build the foundations of the phantom thieves dynamic with akechi's very very very early meddling and where mordred slots in in all this. i feel like it wouldn't pace or feel right if i just skipped all this stuff or summarised it into a paragraph or two with too much time skipping oTL i hope that is... okay....... that we're still only like, three days into p5r timeline hrg
> 
> akira pov of the texting next chapter hhhuehue
> 
> thanks again for reading all ;;w;; esp you all giving me those amazing comments with ur analysis on this fic every one makes me warm with joy and i. will try my best to. overcome shyness to.r eply. hhshgf thank y'all...!!


	18. Kamoshida Arc: XVI

Volleyball was not Akira's favourite sport.

In fact, he didn't have a favourite sport at all. He wasn't the type of person willing to suffer for some vague notion of _"it's good for your health!"_ when he could spend that time doing more important things like browsing social media or reading. Blessed with a high metabolism, he told himself he could get away with being physically lazy.

It looked like that was going to change. While the logic of the Metaverse allowed Akira to perform insane physical feats he otherwise couldn't do, the exertion still translated to the real world as a bone deep fatigue and mottled bruises in places he didn't know existed. His muscles were painfully stiff, his joints throbbed from impact strain, and he found himself _missing_ the athletic ease of his Metaverse self.

Ryuji, meanwhile, didn’t seem overly bothered about the muscle pain. While Akira barely dragged his aching carcass into Shujin, Ryuji had cheerfully met him at the gates with a spring in his step. It made Akira green with envy and deeply regretting his early teenage years of junk food and never exercising beyond a short jog to catch a bus.

But, needing to work out or not, it didn’t change Akira’s current predicament: forced to attend a sports day where the only sport was volleyball while feeling like he’d been beaten within an inch of his life sometime during the night. It was hell.

“Psh, what an ass,” Ryuji muttered next to him, jerking his chin at Kamoshida swanning about the volleyball court. The current match was second year girls versus the third year girls, and Kamoshida was giving very _thorough_ tips that just about flirted the line of inappropriate. 

Just about.

“Yeah,” Akira muffled a yawn in the crook of his arm, “He’s pretty obvious about it, isn’t he?”

“It’s because he thinks no one’ll stand up to him,” Ryuji scoffed, crossing his arms as he leaned back on the bench he was seated on, “Well, that’s gonna change soon. We're gonna take that cocky bastard down!”

“Mm.”

Honestly, Akira was having some minor doubts about just getting the volleyball team to report Kamoshida. Maybe he was being naive, but he would have thought _someone_ would have complained by now. An entire team getting brutalised on a near daily basis, and girls getting sexually harassed… surely _someone_ noticed or had it reported? In which case, who was protecting Kamoshida? The principle? Why? ‘Cuz he was an Olympian?

He sighed and pulled out his phone, idly searching ‘Kamoshida Shujin’, just in case there _had_ been something. All he got was a bunch of old interviews and an even older article of a sexual harassment case against him that had been dropped. Nothing about him being a pervy old man abusing students. The only mention of Shujin attached to his name was that he taught there now, bringing prestige to the school. 

_that might be why nothing’s happened to him,_ Akira thought darkly. 

He closed the browser and went on his social media. Ever since he ‘left’ home, his social media account had been heavily pruned to cut off his old friends from his life. The second he got charged for assault, they had dropped him like a hot potato, and honestly, good riddance (is what he told himself, to make the sting of rejection a little less agonising). It meant his timeline was a little sparse now but-

Akira’s eyes snagged on _Akechi Goro,_ who he hadn’t followed but searched enough times for it to pop up in the ‘Who You Should Follow’ box. Akechi… he wondered if he found his cat yet. 

_wait a minute, isn’t he a detective?_

Akira paused at that. While Akechi hadn’t introduced himself as a detective, his social media and his fans spoke often about his work with the police and aiding in solving the mysterious Mental Shutdown cases (well, when they weren’t gushing about his good looks, affable nature and ‘adorkable jokes’). To Akira, he was just a cute guy he was still mustering the courage to text, but maybe, in case Ryuji’s plan to get the volleyball team to confess didn’t work out, Akira could see if this ‘Detective Prince’ could do anything?

Something in his stomach squirmed at the idea of reaching out to Akechi with the intention to use him, but it wasn’t as if Akira was going to drop him immediately afterwards. It was like an icebreaker, just like the lost cat thing. Akira tapped his thumb against the edge of his casing before coming to a decision. 

“Hey, whatcha doin’?” Ryuji asked as Akira typed, re-typed, and re-typed again his opening to Akechi. 

“Texting Akechi,” he mumbled, finally just hitting ‘send’ before he ended up writing an essay of a hello and coming across as a weirdo. He probably got a lot of weird messages from people all the time, judging by how his popularity was almost idol-like, and Akira didn’t want to be pegged as one of those from the starting gate. 

“Huh? _Oh,_ the ‘I lost my cat’ guy from yesterday. Heh, you going for it, then?” Ryuji leaned over to snoop, but Akira angled his body away, unable to help but feel a little flustered about it. Ryuji took it all in good humour; “Alright, I get it, I get it. Good luck, bro.”

“Uh, thanks,” Akira mumbled, pretending his face didn’t feel like he could fry an egg on it. 

Luckily, Akechi didn’t think he was a weirdo at all - or at least, didn’t show it in his replies to him. He also found out a few things about him such as: despite looking like a prim and proper student, he was more than happy to text away in the middle of class, he worked out in the mornings (hello???), he had found his cat (yay) and he _wanted_ to hang out with him with very little wheedling from Akira. Tonight even, which was fortunately convenient. 

Of course, Akira wasn’t going to launch his whole _‘hey, so, my PE teacher is an abusive dick, can you arrest him’_ pitch the second he met up with him, but the quicker he built rapport with him, the more confident Akira will feel in asking him for help - if they ended up needing it. 

_i don’t trust adults, especially the police,_ Akira thought to himself as he locked his phone, _but akechi’s a student too. he might understand a bit better._

Hopefully. 

* * *

“Events are advancing at a strange pace.”

Mordred groaned quietly, opening his eyes to the strange space that was the Velvet Room. This time there was no rain, or the groaning of a metal ship, or the undulating of choppy waves. There was simply Leblanc, the walls a soft, peaceful blue, with Igor sitting behind the counter. Mordred felt less terrible too, more alert and focused compared to the last few times. 

“Why do I always forget this place when I wake up?” he asked irritably, clumsily climbing to his feet. He was still in cat form, standing atop of one of the booths. 

“A side effect of your unusual circumstances,” Igor replied, “From this reality’s perspective, your Velvet Room cannot exist, and thus it does not.”

Mordred felt like he was shaking off the lingering remains of a persistent hangover, but he got the gist, “Which means I cannot perceive it to exist when I wake up in that reality, because my mind tricks itself into thinking it isn’t here.”

“As I said, your circumstances are most unusual, and worrisome.”

Mordred bit back a groan, sitting back on his haunches, “Are you going to explain what the hell is going on in a way I understand?”

Igor just gave him that rictus grin.

“This is the path you chose,” Igor eventually added, when Mordred silently conveyed he was about to commit violence, “My role is to offer guidance when you stray from your assigned path, and assistance when you require it.”

“My assigned path being ‘freedom and redemption’,” Mordred muttered, “That doesn’t make sense. They cancel each other out.”

“How so?”

“Redemption will negate my freedom,” Mordred said very slowly. Igor didn’t seem like the type to know how the human justice system worked, “Society will decree that I am to be punished for my crimes under Shido and I will either be jailed for life, or executed. How is any of that _free_? And don’t feed me some trash about how _‘I’ll be free from my guilty conscience’_ , because I don’t. Feel guilty, that is.”

“Do you not?”

“No,” Mordred said firmly, “I… hurt a lot of people for something that didn’t even matter in the end, and I recognise that. But to me it was _necessary_. I feel no guilt over that.”

Igor gave him a very long, measured look. Mordred tried not to fidget under the weight of it.

“Look,” Mordred blurted, hating how flustered he sounded, how quickly his pride demanded to explain himself, “I will _not_ make excuses for what I have done, or feign contriteness. I don’t even know why you are _wasting your time_ on me, when others deserve a second chance much more.”

Igor still said nothing. 

“I’m not a good person! Do you understand that!?”

Silence.

“I _enjoyed_ hurting people! I enjoyed how powerful it made me feel, and didn’t _care_ about the damage I was doing! This whole second chance, redemption shit is _wasted_ on me-!”

“It is not wasted on you,” Igor finally said. 

Such a simple phrase, delivered by a comical looking stranger, shouldn’t have emotionally gut-punched him like that. But it did. Mordred stared at him, pathetically huddled in a defensive hunch and his voice briefly lost to him. The gentle sound of rain started pattering against Leblanc’s windows. 

“You recognise your actions as ‘wrong’,” Igor said quietly, “You recognise that you are not, inherently, a ‘good person’. The Velvet Room has seen many guests in its time, and while an exceptional few took to heroism and empathy with a natural ease, others did not.”

Mordred looked away. 

“Your path is a difficult one,” Igor reminded him, “And your own selfish heart is your greatest foe. But I have faith that when the time comes, you will make the right choice and free yourself from the cursed fate you are bound to.”

Ominous.

“... _‘Whose redemption are you seeking?’_ You asked me that before,” Mordred muttered, “I thought it would be mine.”

“Is it?” Igor asked. 

Mordred lifted his head to answer, because _of course_ he would be interested in his own redemption, but a flash of lightning cracked somewhere outside, drowning his words with thunder and-

“ _Mordred._ ”

He woke up to Akechi tugging on his hind leg to a backdrop of noise - clattering chairs, desks, people talking, a dull white noise that briefly reminded him of rain. A heartbeat passed, and the image of the Velvet Room shaped as Leblanc slid out of his thoughts like crumbling sand, leaving nothing but a vague feeling of homesickness he couldn’t place.

“What?” he groaned, sounding groggy even to his own ears, “We done?”

“Yes,” Akechi whispered - no doubt not wanting to be caught talking at his desk, haha, “Please get into my bag.”

“Fine, fine.”

A few minutes later, Mordred was crammed into Akechi’s school bag and trying not to get half-crushed under the books wedged in there. There was a fucking awful headache thumping behind his eyes, one he reluctantly chalked up to dehydration. He hadn’t drank anything except a few mouthfuls of water this morning, thinking about it. 

“We will be visiting Kurusu today before our… meeting,” Akechi said once they left the school. Judging by his carefree, loud tone, he was pretending to take a phone call, “At a place called ‘Leblanc’. Do you know it?”

 _ugh, fuck you,_ Mordred thought tiredly. 

“Never heard of it.”

“Hm,” Akechi sounded doubtful, but he didn’t press, “I am curious as to why he reached out to me so suddenly. He struck me as quite shy.”

 _it’s akira,_ something venomous and petty grumbled inside Mordred’s heart, _he probably smelled the desperate loneliness and finally took pity on you._

“Do you think he has an ulterior motive?” Mordred asked, mostly out of morbid curiosity. He suspected Akira _definitely_ had an ulterior motive to contact Akechi out of the blue, even if this early in the game he had no idea what about. Kamoshida, perhaps? Akechi was well known as the new Detective Prince at this point, so maybe he was hoping to get some legal dirt.

“Undeniably.”

 _events are advancing at a strange pace,_ something echoed in Mordred’s mind, though he couldn’t place from where. 

“Well, we will find out eventually what Kurusu wants,” Akechi chuckled softly, “Perhaps he is simply a fan of mine?”

Mordred choked on an undignified snort. 

Yeah, _right._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> igor low-key wondering what the hell yaldy did to this wild card jfc 
> 
> anyways
> 
> because i feel like sharing my writing process, i tend to use songs and the like to help me 'frame' the character arcs in my fics. So, for those curious, here is what i use for Akechi's character arc in Nine Lives: [Victim](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbYva7AE8Aw), and [Rightfully](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47lRoTUHv1w), both by Mili (very good songs!). 
> 
> As always, thank you for reading, kudosing and commenting! it's keeping my motivation up! ;w;


	19. Kamoshida Arc: XVII

**13 April, 2016**

Leblanc, upon first glance, didn’t seem like much. 

It had a subdued decor, nothing like the more trendy cafes that lined central Shibuya, and its out of the way nature implied that it relied mostly upon regular clientele, as opposed to heavy foot traffic. Akechi hoped that meant the coffee was of sufficient quality, to keep those regulars coming back.

“I doubt this place will let you have cats inside,” Mordred said, the bag shifting uncomfortably on his shoulder as the cat wriggled restlessly, “Let me out and I’ll go for a walk.” 

“Don’t stray too far,” Akechi said, shifting his bag to hang it from the crook of his elbow, allowing Mordred to easily escape onto the waist high wall outside of the cafe. 

“Yeah, sure,” Mordred glanced over at him, his tone strange as he said, “Enjoy your date.” 

Then, before Akechi could reply, the cat leapt off the wall and trotted down the street, his fluffy tail raised high. Akechi watched him go with a frown, zipping his bag closed and reshouldering it. Mordred had been in such a foul mood the whole journey here. If he didn’t know any better, he’d say the cat was acting _jealous._

 _maybe he has a crush on Kurusu-kun?_ He thought with considerable amusement. Whatever the reason, it was a possible leverage point later down the line. 

Pushing aside the Mordred Mystery for now, he entered Leblanc, the little bell ringing as he did so. The interior looked cramped, with only a handful of booths and a row of stools before the counter, the scent of coffee and something like curry thick in the air. The cafe was empty of customers, and the sole employee (owner, perhaps) was an adult who looked to be on the wrong side of forty. 

There was no cheery greeting from him as Akechi approached with a winsome smile. The adult gave him a grunted hello and a; “What can I get you?”

Akechi quickly skimmed the menu behind the man - chalk on a blackboard style menu too - and said, “Just a coffee for me. Black, no sugar.” 

The man - he was convinced this was the owner, and therefore Kurusu’s guardian - moved to carry out his order. There was no instant coffee machine like in most cafes Akechi visited. The owner made it in some strange, long-winded way, so Akechi sat at one of the stools to keep a close eye on it. It looked interesting. 

It was when his coffee was served that Kurusu entered the cafe. His expression seemed troubled, until he noticed Akechi, where it softened into something a little more pleased and shy. 

“Hello,” Kurusu began. 

“Hey, don’t bother the customers,” the owner said in a sharp tone, and Kurusu ducked his head a little with a wince. 

_huh._

“No, it’s alright. I came here to meet up with him,” Akechi quickly intervened, logging that interaction away. Were things not good between Kurusu and his guardian?

 _i could use that, maybe,_ he noted idly. 

“Is that so?” The owner softened up a bit at that, giving Akechi a bit of a closer look, “Hm, you’re not from Shujin.” 

“We met outside of school,” Kurusu mumbled, fiddling with his hair in what Akechi noted as a nervous gesture. 

“Hmm,” the owner sized Akechi up, and he gave the adult his most charming smile. He was an honour student, pretty and doe-eyed and oh so _nice,_ there was no way he could be thought of as anything less than ideal. He was proven right when the owner finally gave a small nod and turned away from them both to watch the television instead, a silent approval.

Kurusu relaxed a fraction at that, though he remained awkwardly hovering near the end of the counter, like he wasn’t quite sure what to do with himself. Or where to go. 

_or, where he is_ allowed _to go?_

“Please don’t feel awkward on my account,” Akechi said with an airy laugh, leaning over to playfully pat the empty stool next to him, “I’m sorry if I threw you off getting here so early.”

“It’s okay, I… got sidetracked with something,” Kurusu said as he shyly approached, and that troubled look came back for a brief moment. Curious. 

“If you two are wanting to hang out, best do it in your room,” the owner said gruffly, “I don’t want you kids down here if more customers come in.” 

Kurusu all but pounced on that suggestion, “Okay. Thanks, boss.” 

_his… room?_

The cafe didn’t look like it had an apartment above it, but Akechi didn’t comment as he picked up his cup of coffee and his school bag, and followed Kurusu to the stairs tucked behind the public bathroom. Every step creaked loudly, and it opened up to an attic space: dusty, cluttered, with a television and a sofa that looked older than _him,_ and a bed that wasn’t a bed at all, but a mattress supported on a row of boxes. 

Well. 

Well then. 

“Ah…” Akechi glanced around, trying to find something to compliment, “It is… roomy?” 

Kurusu sighed as he dumped his bag, “I guess.” 

Akechi set his bag down next to the table holding up the ancient TV, followed by his coffee cup _on_ the table, “I’m surprised he gained approval for this to be converted into a living space…”

Kurusu made a noise - like he just stopped himself from saying something incriminating. Something like _‘oh, he probably hasn’t, but shit, I just realised I shouldn’t admit that, damn it’_. It was a very unique noise, and one that had Akechi smiling wryly as he turned towards him. 

“Is everything alright, Kurusu-kun?” he asked gently, probing for cracks and weak points to slip a hook into, “You seem troubled.” 

“Oh, it’s, um nothing,” Kurusu shuffled his feet and fiddled with his hair, “I just ran into a classmate after school. She seemed upset…”

“Oh?”

“Yeah,” Kurusu’s gaze focused on him, and some of that shyness and uncertainty melted away. It was a curious transformation to witness, and Akechi tilted his head in open curiosity as the other persona-user clearly weighed something mentally before asking; “Have you heard about Kamoshida? From Shujin?”

Akechi made a show of thinking about it, rather than already having a mental file compiled of that vile creature’s every misdeed; “The… Olympian, yes?”

“In volleyball,” Kurusu confirmed, “My classmate… apparently, he’s been, hitting on her, trying to get her to sleep with him, and… stuff.”

Very vague, very roundabout. Akechi wondered what Kurusu was up to. Perhaps he was looking for a place to vent, separate from the school and anyone who might already have a well-formed opinion on the situation. In which case, wasn’t that _fortunate?_ Akechi could be a _very good_ listener, when the mood struck.

“That’s very inappropriate for a teacher to do,” Akechi said sympathetically.

“Yeah,” Kurusu blew out a frustrated breath, “But none of the staff do anything about it. Everyone _knows_ , but because he’s supposedly famous… sorry, you didn’t come here to listen to me rant.” 

“No, no, it’s perfectly fine. I understand your frustration,” Akechi murmured, cupping his chin in thought, “But, now that you mention it…”

“Hm?”

“Ah, I don’t know if you are aware,” Akechi affected some humility in his tone, tucking a lock of hair behind his ear, as if he was self-conscious, “But I’m an intern at the prosecution office. While I am not officially hired as such, people call and treat me as a detective, which allows me access into various cases that cross the prosecution’s desk.”

Kurusu’s expression briefly flickered with satisfaction. Oh ho, it seemed he already knew that. Abruptly, Akechi realised what Kurusu was up to, and he felt a strange, fluttery feeling in his chest. Like excitement, hot and a little bloodthirsty, and a _‘oh, you sly little-’_

It seemed this new Persona-user wasn’t such a wilting wallflower after all. 

“I _think_ I may have seen a case linked to a Kamoshida of Shujin,” Akechi continued, tapping his bottom lip, “But it was so long ago…”

“Can you dig that back up?” Kurusu asked, his tone a little- well, not quite _commanding,_ but there was a thread of authority there that had him straightening up a little. 

“I could,” Akechi grimaced, “But questions might be asked why I’m so interested in such an old case.”

“Old?”

“Several months,” Akechi said, “It was… hm, yes, I believe it was abuse allegations? It was a strange one, as it was dropped very quickly due to witnesses retracting their statements- is something wrong, Kurusu-kun?”

Kurusu’s face blanked from the fearsome scowl it had fallen into, though his eyes glittered with an anger Akechi was _intimately_ familiar with; “No. I’m just… it was known for so long?”

“Without evidence…” Akechi trailed off, and with a sunburst of _inspiration,_ he realised what fishhook he could use, “It is more common than you think, Kurusu-kun. Intimidation, bribery, or other reasons, criminals are able to evade retribution because cases brought against them are unsupported, or witnesses are too intimidated to testify or,” his lip curled, “ _evidence_ mysteriously vanishes.” 

Akechi sighed heavily, lowering his gaze as he murmured; “You will think me naive, but I began my career in prosecution in hopes of bringing justice to criminals... but all it made me aware of was how powerless justice, _true_ justice, can be, restrained within the bounds of the law.” 

He wasn’t even lying. Akechi was _agonisingly_ aware of how the ‘justice system’ of this country prevented the real monsters from suffering. He didn’t have to feign any of that bottled up rage, frustration, helplessness cracking through. Justice in this country was a joke. The only true way forward was for him to decide his own truth, and mete out justice according to that.

“Akechi…” Kurusu whispered, and he knew then he _had him._

Akechi bit the side of his lip to stifle a grin.

“Ah, I’m sorry,” he looked back up, sliding his Detective Prince smile in place, but making it a little strained around the edges, “That was… inappropriate of me. I can- try to see what I can dig up regarding Kamoshida, though I cannot make any promises about what will come of it.” 

Kurusu considered him for a long moment. 

“That’s okay, Akechi,” the other Persona-user smiled, and there was something overly confident about it, “I have a feeling karma’ll catch up to Kamoshida, one way or another.”

Akechi laughed wryly, “You’re optimistic, Kurusu-kun.”

Kurusu shrugged, “I guess. But, uh, sorry, I didn’t mean to talk about heavy stuff. Do you want to watch a DVD with me?”

Oh, what a topic change. Akechi blinked, but he rolled with it. Engaging in a mindless activity like watching a film would be a good palate cleanser before he had to deal with Shido’s bullshit tonight (and perhaps pull another all-nighter to deal with those targets he’d been putting off, ugh); “If you want.”

“I’ve only got one series at the moment: the X Folders?”

“Ah, I can’t say I’m familiar with it.”

“Me neither. I heard it’s scary though.” 

And that was how Akechi spent the rest of his time there, which was a little unexpected, but not too bad. He still had that fizzing, hot sensation of excitement jittering through him, though he couldn’t place _why._ Akira was meant to be a pawn, a secret weapon he could hoard all to himself, but there was still the thought… 

_if he can rival me…_

It should be threatening, and it _was_. But it was also exciting too. 

* * *

Yongen-Jaya had a lot of cats. 

None of them were recognisable as Morgana. It was a bit of an uncomfortable reminder that prior to Madarame’s change of heart, Mordred didn’t really _know_ much about what Akira was doing. He had come into _contact_ with Morgana soon after gaining his Persona, yes, but the monster cat wasn’t here. Was it after Kamoshida that he joined them outside of the Metaverse?

He supposed it didn’t really matter. Morgana wasn’t going to be a problem once Akechi implemented his ‘Assimilation Plan’ for the Phantom Thieves. 

Mordred paused to gauge the distance between him and the short wall outside of Leblanc, ignoring the twinge in his hind leg as he leapt up. The potted plants Sojiro used to decorate the front of his cafe made the perfect spot for Mordred to curl up mostly out of sight. He had discovered, during his short jaunt around Yongen-jaya’s backstreets, that people were alarmingly quick to stroke random cats, so he wanted to try and negate that problem as much as possible. 

It was disgusting and violating to be petted, Mordred concluded. The only person he tolerated was _himself,_ and luckily Akechi wasn’t the affectionate type. He firmly squashed the trail of thought determined to meander down the ‘but if Akira petted me’ route. He wasn’t entertaining that idea _at all._

Speaking of Akira… 

Mordred peered around the plant pot at Leblanc’s glass door. He had told Akechi that he wasn’t interested in suffocating in his bag while he made nice with Akira, but the truth was he was genuinely worried he’d combust from sheer _jealousy._ Leblanc was special to him, in a way he had no words for, but it wasn’t the same anymore - _couldn’t_ be the same. It was going to become _Akechi’s_ special place, and Akira will make him his stupid special coffee and stupid special curry and Mordred could have _none_ of it. It was a poisonous, awful thing to feel so he was going to completely avoid it. 

He wasn’t going to set a single paw into Leblanc unless it was life or death. 

Except. 

_this is so boring,_ he mentally grumbled, resting his head on his paws and letting out a loud, dramatic sigh, _how do cats deal with all this free time and nothing to do?_

It wasn’t as if he could do anything useful like spying around here, anyways. Outside of Leblanc, Yongen-Jaya didn’t have anything related to the Phantom Thieves - according to his recollection anyways, except-

Mordred blinked, slowly. 

Except… Sakura Futaba, who… 

He hopped to his feet in an instant, immediately energised. How could he forget that? Futaba’s Palace! Right now she was a shut-in, tormented by feelings of guilt (or whatever) which manifested as a distortion. She had a Palace, and it wasn’t for several months until Akira got off his lazy ass and did something about it. 

_well, he doesn’t know about her yet,_ he thought irritably, _so it’s not really his… fault..._

There was a strange feeling, one he couldn’t quite name. He honestly didn’t care much about the other Phantom Thieves - but he could admit he wronged a few of them greatly. Haru, he didn’t care - her father was a piece of shit, and he honestly felt like she should’ve been _thanking him_ for removing that living sludge out of her life, but Isshiki Wakaba… she had been different, in many different ways. 

That strange feeling didn’t feel very good, when he thought a bit more about it. He sat back on his haunches, frowning at the nauseous, gut-clenching feeling roiling in his belly. It wasn’t anything _personal,_ that was the thing. Shido had wanted her removed, and Akechi, at the time, had thought the best way would be to eliminate the Shadow. Mental Shutdowns were still a new, not fully understood phenomenon then, but it caused either brain damage or long-term comas, and-

Well, the timing- Isshiki threw herself in front of a car and that was that. Shocking, but Akechi hadn’t been overly choked up about it. An unfortunate piece of collateral on his path to bring down Shido. Much like the others that came after. Worth it.

_wasn’t it?_

He didn’t know now. 

It wasn’t Isshiki’s death that was making him feel bad - mostly it was the after. He had only recently learned about the bullshit suicide note and tormenting Futaba from Before, and for what? That level of cruelty, of irrational evil, just confused him. So much effort for nothing, and it - echoed, certain parts of his own past in a way that set his teeth on edge. Thinking about it pissed him off, made his stomach hurt, made him want to-

 _why didn’t i go back further?_ He thought, _i might’ve been able to stop myself from…_

From what? Joining forces with Shido? Then he’d still be some misbegotten orphan rotting away in a social home somewhere while Shido continued to be a fucking demon, living the life, unopposed, with no retribution forthcoming. Akechi was too selfish to be content with _that_ just because, just because, it’d mean he wouldn’t have killed anyone or- 

“ _ARGH_!” he yowled, at the top of his lungs, and bolted off the wall and down the narrow street. 

He didn’t realise where he was going until he was directly outside of the Sakura Residence. 

“I fucking _hate_ you,” he snarled, at the house, at himself, at Akechi, at _Akira,_ “I hate you, _so much_. Things were so much easier back then!” 

But it _was_ back then now, and Mordred was wiser and more bitter, and thoroughly, utterly selfish. There was a path for him to improve his lot, even if it would be claimed by a different Akechi. What will come for him? Satisfaction from righting past wrongs? Yeah, sure, like he’d be content with a paltry prize like that. 

Mordred groaned, hitting his head against the side of the gate. 

This was stupid. 

The air hummed around him, his fur standing on end. He recognised it as a Palace being near, from his frequent visits to Shujin Academy. It was far more intense here, though, the distortion having thoroughly sunk its claws in deep into Futaba’s mind. He could almost taste the pervading sensation of dread.

He didn’t know the details of Futaba’s Palace, only what he gleaned in bits and pieces from passing observations and comments from the Phantom Thieves. He, at the very least, knew the keywords. Or could guess. 

Mordred rubbed his cheek against the gate before sitting back, looking up at the house.

“Sakura Futaba, Sakura Residence… tomb.” 

The world warped.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for late update i got possessed by oneshot ideas i had to write, and also this long ass shadow ops au im slowly being swallowed up by hghgjjss
> 
> (i know you get the dvd later but uhhh fuck it akira bought it like on his 2nd day in leblanc ok ok)
> 
> edit: late as fuck but [this](https://youtu.be/wxyMek3vTgc) is the overall inspiration song for this fic ok thank you


	20. Kamoshida Arc: XVIII

**13th April 2016**

There were certain truths about the Metaverse that Mordred had thought immutable. Those were: physics was a myth, until it decided it wasn’t, there will always be Shadows nearby ready to attack you, and that while the Palace is an epicentre of a distortion, the surroundings will resemble mundane reality the further out you went. 

Futaba’s Palace sort of tipped over those truths. 

Mordred arrived into her Palace and was immediately trapped in a sand dune, his paws burning from the scorching heat and his fur doing very little to fend off the worst of the merciless sun. He shrieked (mostly from pain and surprise because  _ his paws were burning _ ), and Thanatos manifested in a burst of blue flames, the Persona dutifully digging him out of the sand dune before he suffocated or cooked to death. 

So, not his most graceful of entrances. 

“W-Why _ , _ ” he coughed, hacking up the mouthful of sand he’d half-inhaled, “is- there a fucking  _ desert _ here?!”

Thanatos didn’t answer him. The Persona was squatted low over the sand, the edges of its body simmering from the heat rising around it - yet it was cold. Gently cradled as he was in its hands, Mordred felt like he was sitting in front of a comfortable air conditioning unit - not too cold, not too hot. Luckily, Thanatos required barely any focus to maintain a low-energy manifestation like this, so Mordred relaxed as he examined his surroundings. 

Sand, sand, sand. A barren desert with no tomb in sight. Was her distortion  _ that _ strong that it warped the entirety of Yongen-Jaya? The only other person comparable was  _ Shido,  _ swallowing up Tokyo in that stupid flood of his, but he was a special, malevolent outlier that Mordred didn’t consider the standard. 

Perhaps... thinking from Futaba’s perspective, a shut-in  _ would  _ view the outside world as some hazardous wasteland. With most people their cognition filled in the empty spaces of their Palace’s surroundings by subconscious memories of Tokyo; but with Futaba who was a shut-in, there wouldn’t  _ be _ anything to construct outside of her home. The memories were either not there, or so heavily degraded that the Metaverse instead spat out the closest equivalent of a  _ ‘Here Be Monsters’ _ : a threatening unknown of emptiness.

Mordred felt mildly perturbed, though he quickly buried it. He could ponder over the meaning of Futaba’s concerning mental state later. Right  _ now _ he needed to find the Palace’s entrance in this godforsaken desert without drowning in sand or cooking to death. The heat was beginning to beat even Thanatos’s chill. 

_ it feels like i’m lying on grave dirt, _ he mused, feeling his Persona’s hands adjust their grip around him as it rose from its low squat,  _ it’s making me drowsy.  _

It really was. He felt… tired... 

Thanatos floated above the sand, the rattle of its chains drowning out the hissing slide of wind against sand dunes. It should be a harsh noise, but it reminded Mordred of wind charms - like the one Akira hitched up above his bed in the summer, letting the sticky summer breeze gently rustle it to give a soft, musical backdrop. It sounded distant, soft, yet familiar, and combined with the pleasant chill of Thanatos’s hands, the scent of freshly turned dirt and cut grass, and the musical jingle of wind chimes, Mordred found himself starting to doze off despite himself. 

The noise of chains muted, and the desert of Futaba’s distortion stuttered, like the screen of a television snapping with static. The exhaustion reared up with wide jaws and sharp teeth.

Mordred’s eyes slid shut- 

_ (-on one such hot day, where akira’s curls stuck to his flushed cheeks from sweat, a droplet rolling down from his temple as he pushed his glasses back up his nose. he was a little sunburnt. the heat was unseasonable and unexpected for them both and- _

_ -the memory skipped. _

_ memory? _

_ wait that wasn’t right-) _

The tomb loomed over him in the form of a towering pyramid. 

Mordred felt a weird surge of vertigo, though he blinked it back with a sharp shake of his head. There was an odd stitched feeling in his mind, like he just forgot something but- well, he just spent the last who knows how long traversing a desert, so he couldn’t be blamed for zoning out. The edges of his thoughts frayed, a dull ache thumping behind his eyes and down his spine - mental exhaustion. 

He kept Thanatos summoned for too long, that was probably it. He shook the blood flow back into his curiously numb limbs, the exhaustion chased away as quickly as it came. His Persona, reacting to his restlessness, carefully set him down in the shade of that grand tomb, its form melting away into blue flames and reforming as his heavy, restricting helmet. 

The noise of chains rattled in his skull as he stretched the pins and needles out of his legs. 

The heat was less oppressive here - the shade and perhaps the way the sun was angled behind the tomb, but the stone still burned uncomfortably hot against his paws as he awkwardly scrambled his way up the tall steps leading into the tomb. It was unusually quiet, and he sensed no Shadows nearby. 

_ does her feelings of isolation extend to the Shadows as well? _ he wondered, pausing at the top of the stairs to gaze out upon the endless desert. The horizon shimmered, the gold melting into the piercing blue sky, utterly empty. There was no future beyond this tomb, nothing in the distance to strive for, no shelter to hide from the harshness of the desert. To leave this tomb was death, but it was death to stay as well. 

_ trapped, with no one around to help, but not letting anyone close either. _

He understood the feeling well. He suspected, if he ever manifested a Palace, his heart would not choose a barren desert to chase away any intruders. It would be cold; an endless tundra, frozen solid with permafrost and an eternal blizzard cutting away at anything that dared to brave it. There’d be no sun. Not even a moon. Perhaps some stars, coy little glimpses of light like the cheap toy ones stuck to Akira’s attic ceiling. Watching their bright glow fade and dull as the night crept further along, listening to the spaces between Akira’s slow breathing. A comforting sight to take in as he froze to death. 

For a brief moment, beneath the dazzle of the too bright sun, the desert glittered white, and the air was sharp with frost. Only for a fraction of a heartbeat, a what if. 

Mordred blinked, and the desert was golden again. 

He turned away. 

* * *

The Shadow that was Futaba stirred. 

She had been doing that more and more recently. Pain and fear flowed through her, giving rise to resentment and desperate defiance. Her single truth was  _ ‘they’re lying, lying,  _ **_lying_ ** _ ’ _ , bolstered by the stubborn grit of teeth and a determination to see the truth, one day. Futaba lied to herself, or, was trapped in the lie, weaved by clever spiders with webs of poison, and the Shadow that was Futaba existed to gently pry her free. 

The gentleness will have to end soon, though. Mother was only getting angrier. 

But it wasn’t that which roused her today. Futaba was asleep, and Mother was quiet. Something else roused the Shadow that was Futaba, treading inside her distorted heart, each step as sharp and penetrating as an ice cube resting in the palm of her hand. 

_ death. _

A quiver of fear coiled in her belly, but she still rose to meet the intruder. Her Palace tried to bend away from the cold presence, the traps not daring to trigger, hoping to go beneath its notice. Perhaps that was why Mother was quiet. She sensed a bigger predator. The Shadow that was Futaba did not hesitate.

She alighted inside her tomb, before the grand stairs that led to the centre of her heart. The intruder was there, deceptively small, peering up at her from beneath a skull-white mask with painfully bright, yellow eyes. A prickle crawled down the Shadow that was Futaba’s spine, and she was abruptly aware of her fragile state - this small creature felt like it loomed over her, the rattle of chains grating against her ears, metal against bars. Its body was small, but its soul dominated. It had fangs. A hungry heart. Its distortion gnawed on Futaba’s. 

“What are you?” she asked the intruder. 

“An interested party,” the intruder answered with a flick of its tail. Sand trailed the movement, “How are you, Futaba?”

“I do not know you.” 

“You wouldn’t,” the intruder’s tone was wry, and bitter, and something else. The yellow eyes scrutinised her, taking in her appearance, her distortion, “Again: how are you, Futaba?”

The Shadow that was Futaba evaluated the question. Futaba was unwell, and was increasingly deteriorating. It wouldn’t be long, until Mother finally grew angry enough to drag Futaba into her tomb to sleep forever. The Shadow that was Futaba would fight tooth and nail to prevent it, but she was only as strong as Futaba’s will, and that was waning. 

But she shouldn’t admit it to this unknown. 

“Fine,” the Shadow that was Futaba lied. 

The intruder snorted obnoxiously, “Obviously not, if your heart takes the form of a tomb.”

The Shadow that was Futaba’s mouth twisted, and the trap beneath their feet twitched, on a hair trigger. 

The contrary part of her reared up, murmuring  _ ‘drop him, let him experience the drowning sensation of no escape, none, clawing your way out of quicksand but only delaying the inevitable, he won’t be so glib then’ _ , but something stayed her hand. The intruder was too much of a dangerous unknown. Its heart was too hungry. 

“I came to say,” the intruder paused, its tail flicking again, paws shuffling against sandy stone, “I came to say, that… it won’t be for much longer. This state of being.”

The Shadow that was Futaba eyed him suspiciously, “Is that a threat?”

“ _ No _ ,” the intruder barked out, “Why would you-  _ argh, _ how do I keep fucking this up?” 

The intruder paced a tight circle, letting out a harsh exhale. 

“I  _ meant _ some bleeding heart goody-two shoes will come  _ swooping in _ , like the big hero that he is, rescuing you from your despair. You’ll all skip happily into the sunset, enjoy new bonds, friendship, all that cliched  _ shit, _ ” the intruder’s voice gained a mocking, bombastic tone, a glint of fangs behind its mask. Resentment and bitterness and agonising yearning oozed off of it in suffocating waves. It’s heart was too hungry. 

“...and you’ll be happy,” the intruder concluded quietly, stopping his pacing so he stood facing away from her, “Just so you know.” 

The Shadow that was Futaba felt the trap settle. Disengaged. 

“When will the hero come?”

“Soon,” the intruder said dully, “It’ll be soon.” 

The intruder looked over his shoulder at her, one yellow eye looking at her. Something teetered, a moment, the knife dipping dangerously over the edge towards vulnerable flesh. The intruder took a breath as if to say something - stopped. 

“Your mother…” the intruder forced out, awkwardly, “She… she wasn’t...”

The silence stretched out, stretched and stretched and- 

“Never mind,” the intruder muttered, looking away, “The confession would be wasted on you.” 

The Shadow that was Futaba watched the intruder leave - a quiet mutter of ‘ _ back to the real world’ _ , and the thin skin of the Metaverse peeled away, like sharp fingers digging into an orange rind. She watched the intruder walk between the spaces of cognition and reality, and when the hole sealed up, it was a little thinner than before. 

But, it took the chill of death with it, so for that the Shadow that was Futaba was content. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is the chapter of foreshadowing, so have another foreshadowing thing that is cat!akechi's character song for this fic: [The Answer](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eY63N71ATzI) AND [Dark Hero](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3uhPYlCyuxg) from Astral Chains. Certain parts of the songs... mhm... 
> 
> futaba's palace was short, i know, but mordred's not going to overly meddle until a certain something happens... besides, next chapter will be great. next chapter's gonna be S H I D O T I M E (at long last)

**Author's Note:**

> Amazing art by Maha: [Akira with gorocat!](https://twitter.com/Poichanchan/status/1357394979212173312)


End file.
